


A Man Reborn

by omg_okimhere



Category: Ripper Street
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M, trigger warning: mention death of child, trigger warning: mention death of parents, trigger warning: mention domestic violence, vegan trigger warning: graphic description of butcher shop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-08-22 19:08:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 21,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8296912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omg_okimhere/pseuds/omg_okimhere
Summary: This is set in the aftermath of the end of Season Four.  An alternate arc, that I was encouraged to expand upon after the publication of a short story in another forum.  Medical professionals will have to suspend belief a bit.





	1. Chapter One

As the furrowed beige sponge glides slowly across his skin, a single drop of water escapes and rolls down his torso.  Francine arrests it with her finger before it falls to the sickbed.  From the porcelain basin between her knees she refreshes the bathing ball, squeezing out the excess liquid, releasing the woodsy scent of horse chestnut.  As she has every day for the past week, she gently cleanses the upper body of the unconscious man in her care.  She has come to know each old scar like a new friend, has wondered at the serpent eating its tail coiled upon his bicep and the profiled Egyptian figure standing guard amongst the sinews of his forearm.  Surely the story of this man's life is written across his body, but it is a tale at which she can only guess.  She studies his pugilist's face in repose -- the face of a fighter.  He has not opened his eyes in seven days, helped to healing in the sweet sleep of the poppy.  And heal he must, for the wounding done him would have killed most men.  Only through the skill and innovation and sacrifice of his friends does Bennet Drake still breathe, here beneath her fingers.    
  
Francine's touch grows ever more lingering, even more gentle, as she applies the soothing swab to the taut contours of his chest and the deeply etched hollow of his clavicle.  The rise and fall of his breathing is steady, stronger than it has been.  Setting aside her washing kit, Francine leans across to carefully pull away the dressing on the side of her patient's neck.  The torn flesh has hovered on the brink of festering for days, but finally her twice daily applications of antiseptic seem to have turned the tide.  Thank goodness the American doctor had battlefield experience; suturing by torchlight would challenge most surgeons in her acquaintance.  And the crowning genius of the blood transfer! -- her medical colleagues at the university could well learn something from Whitechapel's medic.  
  
Francine busies herself dabbing the row of stitches from a small tincture pot, then covering the area with a fresh cloth soaked in dilute tea tree oil.  Likewise, she tends the large-bore puncture inside his elbow.  So intent is she on her ministrations, she does not immediately sense the change.  Then she looks up into a pair of sad blue eyes.  
  
Gravely she regards him, a hand still poised on his shoulder.  "How long have you been awake?"  
  
Drake's disused voice cracks and he turns his head tentatively to take in his surroundings.  "Am I awake?" he questions, disoriented.  "I thought this was a dream." He glances at her elegant fingers against his skin, and she pulls them away without haste or embarrassment.  "What is this place?"  
  
"The home of Edmund Reid."  Francine half-rises from her chair to pull the quilt over him but he waves her down, instead running a hand through hair sweat-curled in the exceedingly warm room.  
  
"And who are you?" Bennet queries, his craggy face puckered in confusion.  "Did the inspector re-marry while I lay at death's door?"  
  
Francine breathes an inner sigh of relief.  There had been real fear that her patient's wits might have suffered or been lost in his ordeal; thankfully, his sense of self seems to be intact.  She smiles softly.  
  
"My name is Francine Sewell.  I am a nurse hired by Mr. Reid and Captain Jackson."  
  
Bennet turns his face away, staring into some abyss that only he can see.  "You three should have let me die," he whispers.  "I've nought to live for."  
  
"Do not say that!" Francine responds urgently, resolutely.  Sighing, she takes his large hand between hers, an act of comfort, a physical connection to the land of the living.  "The sun still shines.  The birds still sing," she tells him with gentle optimism.  "None of us knows what lies around the next corner."  
  
"Leave off, woman!" Bennet growls, trying to pull away.  "You know not the darkness my soul has seen!"  
  
"Nor you mine, Mr. Drake," is the even-voiced answer.  Bennet meets her eyes, finding his hand still in hers.  "There is always hope of happiness in this world," she insists.  
  
"In _**your**_ world, maybe."  His words still protest, but his fingers acquiesce to her embrace.  
  
Francine holds his gaze, willing his spirit to turn away from the blackness that tries to consume him.  "Look around you, Mr. Drake.  You and I inhabit the same space."  There seems to be both truth and portent in her words.  "There is always hope," she repeats.  
  
A weary smile plays about the corners of Drake's mouth without touching his eyes.  "Your skills must come at a high price," he suggests, alluding to more than her medical intuition.  "How do a copper and a feckless sawbones manage that?"  
  
Returning his smile and releasing his hand, Francine comes to her feet.  "You will ask them yourself," she says brightly.  "They implored that I summon them whenever you came to yourself."  
  


************************  
  
  


Clutching a crocheted shawl around her slender shoulders, Francine steps into the street outside the Reid home.  The air is cool in contrast to the toasty parlour with its well-stocked firebox, kept so to ward off chills in the man lain there to recover.  A quick glance up and down the street finds her what she seeks.  
  
"Penny Daily!" crows the ragged newsboy, waving his wares on the corner where the busier thoroughfare intersects.  Francine watches him for a moment, a shadow of past pain crossing her lovely features.  
  
The lad looks to be about ten, with blonde hair escaping his cap,  and the lanky swagger of a street entrepreneur.  He makes a sale to a portly swell who stops his carriage at the kerb, then turns expectantly when he sees Francine approaching.  "Latest news, mam.  Only a penny."  
  
"I know a way for you to earn a  full shilling," Francine beckons conversationally, while pulling a coin from a pocket.   
  
The boy eyes her with wary interest.  "That's nought but a penny."   
  
Francine nods.  "The bob is yours from the man to whom you give a message for me."  Her audience cocks an ear.  "Do you know the stationhouse on Leman Street?"  No immediate look of comprehension follows, so Francine translates.  "The coppers' crib?"   
  
"I might," the lad admits furtively, blunt fringe falling into his eyes as he pretends not to have had any run-ins with the law.   
  
"Find Inspector Reid.  Tell him his friend is awake."  Francine ignores the lad's dissembling.  
  
"Wot'n if he's not there?" challenges the boy.   
  
"Tell Captain Jackson or the desk sergeant," Francine expands.  "Any one of then would pay for the news."  
  
Slinging his bag over his shoulder, the newskid holds out a print-grimed hand.   
  
Francine hesitates with the money half-way to his palm.  "What's the message?"  
  
"His friend woke up."  As the boy's hand closes over the coin and he turns to run off, Francine stops him with authority.   
  
"I'll take the headlines as well."  She snatches the paper from the air as it sails her way in the the wake of the runner on his errand.  After he is out of sight, she glances down at the block letters above the fold.  
  


MANHUNT CONTINUES

  



	2. Chapter Two

Twitching uncomfortably against the pillows propped behind him, Bennet protests, "No need to fuss.  She just tended to it."  
  
Jackson cocks a sardonic eyebrow at his friend.  "Just admirin' my sewing."  He replaces the dressing on the neck wound and nods to the cloth wrapped round the crook in Drake's elbow.  "That one?"  
  
Bennet touches knowing fingers over the spot, then flexes tentatively.  "It bothers me but little.  Who?"  He can't quite keep his suspicion in check.  
  
The doctor and the inspector glance at one another.  "I have the same scar, Bennet," Reid tells him gently.  Drake digests this news with a grimace.  
  
Jackson chuckles at his discomfiture.  "Be sure to tell me if you find yourself with a burgeoning affinity for bowlers."  It is cruel of him to prey on the less-educated man's fears of science, but the sport is too entertaining.  This time he is rewarded with a sharp look of uneasy annoyance.  Then Bennet sighs.  
  
"You lot went to too much trouble to revive my corpse," he deems.  "You could have been well away.  Is not your freedom in constant jeopardy?"  The planes of his face war over concern and impatience.  
  
"It is the Dove brothers who are on the run," reveals Reid, the excitement of the hunt underlying his words.  "A thorough tossing of Croker's rooms, with the aid of Miss Hart, uncovered ledgers and diaries implicating the Assistant Commissioner."  
  
"Blackmail?" guesses Drake.  
  
"Abel always looked out for Abel," Jackson spits out, not forgetting his own betrayal by the villainous old wharfinger.  
  
"Is Miss Susan back in Newgate then?"  Drake addresses her husband with sympathy.  Jackson turns away with a negative headshake.  
  
Edmund elaborates.  "Miss Susan enjoys her freedom, awaiting her day to render Crown's evidence regarding Croker's doings and the involvement of the Dove brothers."  He glances to Jackson, offering the chance to continue, but the man seems loathe to put the hope into words.  "The magistrate has suggested the commutation of her sentence to time served, in exchange for her testimony."    
  
"She was deep in it," suggests Bennet, well acquainted with the ambiguous and avaricious moral code of the former brothel keeper.  Inwardly he winces, knowing that in some ways, his hands are no more clean.  
  
"She did his books for a time.  She knew where all the skeletons were buried, so to speak."  The inspector continues carefully, "As well as a cache of cash."  
  
The room is quiet for several moments, until the truth triumphs in Bennet's mind.  "Which you two liberated," he concludes, incredulous.  "To pay for nursing care."  The other two shrug their culpability.  Drake shrugs his eyebrows.  "I'll bet Miss Susan doesn't like that."  
  
Jackson waves a careless hand.  "She has the boy.  She is beyond happy."  
  
With that reminder, silence descends -- awkward, filled with the presence of the one person not accounted for.  Patting his plaid-clad knees twice in a diffident attempt to break the mood, Reid stands slowly to the tune of a drawn out, "Well......"  He motions to a carpetbag he's brought in and left by the room door.  "I took the liberty of stopping by your rooms for a few of your things.  Clothes and such."  It is glaringly obvious, Reid playing a role that should be filled by another.  
  
"Did you see my wife?"  asks Bennet quietly, his face turned to the wall, a mask of pain.    
  
Jackson's deep voice answers.  "No one has seen her since she delivered Conor."  
  
Drake drops his head into a sorrowful nod.  "Is she with him, do you think?"  He can barely croak out the query.  
  
Reid bows his own head in empathy.  "It appears she has moved her things and herself out."  He strives to catch his friend's eye.  "I am sorry, Bennet."  
  
"She'll turn up at the emporium, mark my words," Jackson interjects, with a confidence he does not feel.  
  
Drake runs a hand across his slack features,  the strain, both physical and emotional, evident in this sunken eyes and grey pallor.  
  
"Get some rest now, Bennet," urges Edmund.  With a half smile of thanks, Drake closes his weary eyes.  
  
  
  


*******************

"You are home for the day, Inspector?"  Francine asks politely, as the three of them gather in the hallway.  Jackson dons his hat, but Reid has left his hanging on its peg.

"I am," affirms the big man.  "But I would have you continue to come during the work hours, until he is stronger."

Francine blinks her agreement, her face troubled.  "Of course."  She pauses, then continues.  "His state of mind is.....precarious.  He should not be left alone." 

The doctor hefts his leather medical satchel.  "Do you need more laudanum?"  he asks, reaching for the clasp, but Francine stays his hand.

"Not yet," she says firmly.  "I do not want to give it too freely or too often, lest it become his mistress."  She plucks her own pale green derby from the rack and affixes it atop her blonde-red coil of soft braids.

"We are all in your debt, Miss Sewell," intones Reid, as he ushers her to the door, with Jackson trailing behind.  "I will see you in the morning, then?"

"You will," agrees Francine, before turning to the other man.  "And will the captain be so kind as to escort me to the hansom stand?  I have many questions about his blood transfer technique."  Jackson tips his hat gallantly, and the two walk out together.

 

 


	3. CHAPTER THREE

 

 

A soft, rhythmic burring sound mixes with the rustling of the leaves in the rising breeze.  A rough-hewn hand slips in slumber from teacup to lap.  Chirping boldly, an orange-capped sparrow hops across the side table to pick at the crumbs of spongecake left on the saucer.  He flits into the hedge unnoticed, at the sound of Francine returning to the garden.

Her footsteps slow to a nurse's silent glide when she sees the figure dozing in his lounging chair.  Knowing his sleep has been erratic in the wake of the opiate withdrawal, she elects to leave him be.  As quietly as she can, she clears the remnants of their afternoon tea and the half-finished backgammon battle.  The past ten days have been a lazy stretch of hours -- filled with parlour games and tabletop tournaments, reading and wordcross puzzles, quiet conversation and lively discussion, even some interludes of music courtesy of the inspector's latest and proudest technological toy, the gramophone.  What began as a static pairing of necessity between a man not accustomed to accepting aid and a woman well versed in providing it, has eased into a dynamic partnership of the day-to-day.  On the surface, there is little intersecting between the lives of a university-educated woman of the North London middle class, and a self-made man of modest means from the cruel streets of Whitechapel.  Yet kindness and an open mind might transcend many divisions.  The day that Francine succeeded in coaxing a belly laugh from Bennet with her parody of one of her most comically pedantic colleagues, was the day they both looked at the other differently. 

Now, as Francine gently lays an afghan across Bennet's legs, a flash of tenderness warms her features, a look which she would quickly hide were his eyes to fly open.  But Drake sleeps on, dreaming his no doubt dark dreams.  A sudden gust ruffles his hair, bringing the chill of falling temperatures.  Casting an eye to the lowering sky, Francine tucks the knitted woolen around her patient's shoulders, before making her way inside.

 

 

 

 

***************************

 

 

 

 

"This stew is as fine as anything served the Queen."  Bennet scrapes the bottom of his bowl with relish, to the sound of a quick laugh from Francine.

"Does that make you a prince then?" she teases, tilting her head, while refilling his waterglass. 

He mirrors her smile, while pushing forward his dish for seconds.  "Indeed, I begin to think so."

From the rosebud porcelain tureen in the table's center, Francine ladles out a half-portion of spiced beef and vegetables.  "Don't overdue, Mr. Drake," she cautions, frowning at the spot of brown gravy she drips on the hunters green tablecloth.  "Your appetite returns because the laudanum retreats."  A slender index finger dabs up the spill and carries it to her mouth, watched surreptitiously but no less avidly by the man across the dining board.  When the lady looks his way, he hastily drops his gaze to his spoon.

"Good night for a hot pot," he comments, thankful for the distracting rattle of sleet assaulting the windowpanes.  The sun is long gone, a cold spring drizzle has settled in, and Reid is undeniably overdue. 

The two share a companionable silence, their bodies warmed by the heat from the woodstove, their faces warmed by the glow of candlelight.  Eventually, Francine pushes back her chair and gathers up the remains of their meal.  She returns bearing a cut glass bottle of rich red porto and two tall narrow glasses.

"A good night for something to warm the cockles."  She pours, as Drake turns his ladderback seat and stretches his long legs to the fire.  Dim is his memory of a day when he has felt this sated, or this peaceful.

After a moment, with the sweet Portuguese wine rolling across his taste buds and loosing his tongue, Drake slides a sideways glance at his companion.

"The inspector is delayed this evening," he points out the obvious.  "You would normally be snug in your own home of a Friday night."  As though to punctuate his observation, a swirl of wind throws more precipitation against the rafters.  Francine merely shrugs, twisting her glass in place on the table, intent on its depths.

Compressed lips prove insufficient to keep Bennet's question from escaping.  "Do you trade tending me during the day, for tending a husband after hours?"  A quick shake of her head.  "No husband?" he wonders softly.

"Once."  Francine's eyes meet his.  "He has been dead these eight years.  Cholera."  Her voice is strangely flat when she relays this, but Bennet is achingly familiar with the odd turns grief can take in the hearts of those remaining.

"My sympathies."  The kinship he feels is powerful.  He thinks he knows the well of her pain; then the narrative reveals a deeper twist.  Bennet watches as the feminine fingers resting between them unconsciously form a fist.

"He was a brutal and petty man.  I do not mourn his passing."  At the thought of her gentle soul being mistreated, Drake's countenance darkens and his own scarred hand curls for a fight.

Yet in the next moments, the tension leaves her, to be replaced by a pensiveness, a dreamlike glimpse into the sad past.

"He is well gone from my life," Francine whispers.  "However, the king also took our boy at the same time that winter."  Though the passing seasons have blurred the edges of the picture in her mind, she can still see his bright eyes, can still hear his childish laugh of glee.

"How old?" Bennet chokes out past the lump in his throat.  Too much pain in this world.  Too much. 

"Three," Francine replies tenderly, then turns away in helplessness.  "There was nothing I could do to save him."

With the ticking of the woodsman's clock marking the seconds, a quiet understanding washes over Bennet.  "And so you became a nurse," he completes the story.  "To save someone else's little boy."

A flicker of wordless acknowledgement passes between them.  Her truths have lived alone in the corners of her heart for so long, Francine doesn't quite know how to proceed.  Vulnerability is not a cloak she wears willingly, yet she feels somehow safe wrapped in the empathetic gaze of this man who battles his own demons.

Suddenly, the potentially awkward need for further conversation is shattered by the bang of the front door flying back on its hinges.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter Four

" 'Tis a night fit for nought but penguins!" exclaims Edmund, fighting the wind to close the portal.  He shakes the moisture from his overcoat and hat before hanging, then comes to warm his hands over the stove.  Glancing at the clock with a scowl, he mutters, "Sergeant Drummond had better have my daughter home soon."  
  
"Theater, was it?" queries Drake mildly, pouring his friend a draught of port.  "Gettin' a cab from the West End to Whitechapel takes some persuasion."  
  
"It does," agrees Reid.  "Last in line."  He has his doubts whether the introverted sergeant has the resources, verbal or financial, to wrest a hansom from the entitled London toffs; he has much more confidence in his resourceful daughter.  Belatedly, his vision flits over the cozy scene before him.  
  
"I'm sorry to keep you so late, Miss Sewell."  
  
Francine brushes aside his apology.  "It was time well spent," she declares, and her eyes meet Bennet's without meaning to.  
  
Drake turns quickly to Reid with a question.  "Break in the case?"  
  
"We draw closer to our prey," the inspector affirms somberly, upending his glass.  When his gaze clears the rim on its way down, Drake asks a second question with his eyebrows.  "It is only the two," replies Reid cryptically.  
  
Amused by their transparent male codespeak, Francine finishes her wine and stands to depart, only to have her way barred by Reid's large hand.  
  
"Please, Miss Sewell," he implores graciously.  "Stay the night, if you may.  It is late and the weather is foul."  Drake's ears perk with this development, and he awaits Francine's reaction.  It is swift in coming.  
  
Eyes wide, hand to bodice, she cries out melodramatically, "My reputation will be in tatters, sir!"  From his spot still in his chair, Bennet detects with amusement the quirk of a smile around the corner of her mouth.  Reid, however, is totally nonplussed.  
  
"You would share a room with Mathilda, of course," the inspector says primly, then finishes on a more grim tone.  "If Drummond ever returns her from the playhouse."  
  
Now Francine's smile breaks in full.  "I jest, Mr. Reid," she assures him.  "My reputation is mine to own, not another's to define."  
  
The two gentlemen share a look, as though to shore each other up in the face of such boldness.  Then a sound seems to reach Reid's ear.  
  
"Ah."  
  
Once again, the front door latch trips, opening the panel much more calmly this time to admit Edmund's fresh faced young daughter.  Hovering over her with an umbrella like one of Cleopatra's slaves with a palm frond, is the tall dark-haired policeman who has caught her eye.  He steps briefly inside the door to greet the company.  
  
"Inspector....Inspector....Madam...."  
  
Reid nods curtly, affixing the younger man with the glaring scrutiny all fathers reserve for their girl child's suitors.  
  
"Drummond" -- he says succinctly, then -- "Early day tomorrow, is it not?" -- with a pointed look over the sergeant's shoulder to the outside.  
  
Stifling a sigh, Mathilda turns resolutely to her escort.  "It was a thrilling and entertaining evening, Samuel," she thanks him brightly, placing a gloved hand on his forearm.  This her father notes with a frown.  
  
Casting a self-conscious side eye at the inspector, Drumm replies formally, "I am always grateful for the pleasure of your company, Miss Reid."  He departs quickly, with Mathilda locking the hasp after him.  
  
"Finally," grumbles Edmund, while Francine and Bennet strive to hide their mirth.  
  
Mathilda steps in close to plant a filial kiss.  "Don't be cross, Father," she admonishes.  "The streets are awash.  Our driver took several detours to get here."  
  
In the wake of her words, Edmund senses two heads turning to him expectantly.  Bouncing an encouraging nod between the two ladies, he announces, "In light of that fact and the late hour, we must offer Miss Sewell a bed for the night."   
  
Mathilda's large, intelligent eyes gleam with fun.  "I have plenty of room," she invites the taller woman.  "Though I dare say my sleeping gowns may fall a bit short."  
  
Francine grins, liking the girl's cheeky directness.  "I will make do," she says with a wink.  
  
Taking her guest by the arm, Mathilda pulls her down the hall towards the bedrooms.  "I have many to choose from.  What is your favorite color?"  
  


 

***********************

 

 

"Confounded woman, always pestering me to drink more water!" grumbles Bennet inside his head, as he tiptoes down the hallway to the water closet in nothing but his woolen long drawers.  The household has retired for the evening, yet as he passes Mathilda's room, the sound of animated female voices reaches his ears.  Resisting the uneasy urge to eavesdrop, he resolutely goes about his business whilst pondering what sorts of things the fairer sex might discuss so late into the night.

Upon his return something -- whether a lull in the storm or a trick of the thin walls --brings his own name to him from behind the door, followed by a burst of girlish giggling.  His steps falter in astonishment, even as the portal opens, emitting a still-laughing Francine.  Head down, honey-coloured hair loosed, clad in an open dressing gown over a light green night frock, she does not see him until after she pulls the latch and turns. 

There is a protracted moment of silence, during which they each take in the other's mode of undress.  As a nurse, Francine is no blushing innocent when it comes to a man's body, yet the sight of his lean hips and masculine contours below the rolled waistband causes her breath to catch in her throat.  For Bennet's part, all he can see is long, slim legs, bare from knee down, and the hint of uncorseted nipples under the stretched cotton fabric.  Suddenly his knees feel weak and he reaches for the wainscotting to steady himself. 

"Mr. Drake!" exclaims Francine in an alarmed whisper, rushing in to slip under his arm and shoulder some of his weight.  "You should lie back down."  Supporting him with two arms around his torso, she leads him slowly back to the parlour.  Bennet knows he could walk on his own and probably should, but he tells himself it is necessary to maintain the facade of infirmity rather than reveal how the sight of her affects him.  Still, with her feminine form pressed so tightly against him, he can only hope he makes it to the daybed and under a blanket, before his body betrays him. 

Once safely beneath the covers, Bennet nods his thanks.  "Don't mean to keep you," he mumbles gruffly into the awkward stillness. 

Inhaling deeply and pulling the silk sides of her outer garment more properly around her, Francine suggests, "I was just on my way to make some chamomile.  Would you like a cup?"

Bennet agrees readily, glad of a diversion;  her presence unnerves and intoxicates him at the same time.  He spends the minutes until her return staring at the ceiling, lost in muddled midnight thoughts.  Eventually, the calming aroma arising from the gilded china service wafts him back to the present. 

"For sweet dreams," Francine says softly, when he meets her eyes and takes her offering.

Balancing the saucer in his broad palm, Bennet brings the teacup to his lips.  The warm liquid soothes his throat and fills his sinuses, but he knows it will not bring slumber.  After a moment, he admits bitterly, "Sleep is often a stranger to me."  In truth, the herald of the night frequently brings him terrors and tremors.

Ensconced in an over-stuffed paisley-patterned chair beside Bennet's bed, Francine sips her own drink while studying his face.  She had not even tried to keep her curiosity at bay.  As she and the inspector's  daughter had  formed an instant sisterhood, so like sisters they had shared talk of the men around them.  Her picture of Bennet Drake now contains both shadow and light, and is framed by a sense of recent history.  Hesitantly, she tests the temperature of the pot with her hand, before pouring refills.

"Do you know what eases my patients at hospital when they cannot sleep?" she posits conversationally.  "A bit of prose or verse read aloud."

Drake scowls in reply.  " I ain't no three year old who needs a bedtime story."  Immediately he regrets his words and casts apologetic eyes to Francine, but she seems to have missed the hurt she might have found there.  Instead, she is gazing at him in a most direct manner.

"Believe me, Mr. Drake, I do not think of you as a child."

This enigmatic truth lies between them for long minutes, until Bennet gestures diffidently at the ascetic inspector's bookcase.  "The only thing here is textbooks."

Smiling slowly in tacit understanding, Francine rises to her feet.  "I believe I saw a folio of poetry in Mathilda's room."

And so it is that young Miss Reid finds them in the hour before dawn, dreaming side by side, one curled in a chair, the other propped abed, with the stove growing cold.  Gently, Mathilda covers Francine with a blanket and retrieves the leaves of verse from the carpet, closing the damask cover embroidered:  _Sonnets from the Portuguese_

 

 

 


	5. Chapter Five

Shimmering puddles dot the pathways that wind through the botanical wonders of Kew.  Everywhere, immigrant groundskeepers in flat caps and heavy shoes labour industriously to police up debris from the storm.  The giant greenhouse of glass and iron known as the Palm House glistens in the morning sun, while the freshly washed roses in their tidy beds open moist petals to a new day.    
  
Intent upon the demeanor of her strolling partner, Francine lands a pearl-buttoned boot squarely in a patch of water.  
  
"Careful, Miss Sewell," cautions Bennet, taking her arm in a display of solicitousness that seems to break him momentarily out of his subdued mood.  This first outing since the assault in the catacombs has so far been a quiet affair, with Bennet dwelling too long in his memories of other weekend walks escorting ladies now gone from his life.  
  
Francine knows not the source of his melancholia and only wishes to cheer him.  After casting about in her head for a topic, she settles on some news gleaned from Reid at breakfast.  
  
"The inspector promises a visit from Dr. Jackson on the morrow."  Although the moment is past, she makes no move to disentangle her hand from Bennet's forearm; he likewise seems content to remain thus entwined.  "I predict he will remove your sutures."  A brief shrug of the eyebrows is the only indication he has heard her.  
  
They match strides in silence for a time, until Bennet reveals what plagues his mind this morn.  
  
"Have there been any other visitors to my bedside while I lay witless?  Any you have not mentioned?"  
  
Francine regards him steadily, her blue-grey eyes clear with understanding.  
  
"A woman, perhaps?  There have not."  
  
Bennet's sad, sea-coloured orbs spark a challenge.  "What do you know of it?"  
  
A soft smile robs Francine's revelation of any unease it might engender in him.  "Despite what her father and her Uncle Ben fondly believe, Mathilda is a young woman now, and a perceptive one.  She told me a bit of the Ballad of Bennet Drake."    
  
Adjusting his hat to cover his embarrassment, Bennet snorts, "No love story, that."  
  
"More of a tragedy, I take it," observes Francine succinctly.  She asks herself how long it will take before he deduces that she urged the telling from her roommate of the night last.  
  
"In matters of the heart, I am accursed," Bennet sums up, his tone bleak.  
  
Blinking in consternation, Francine finds herself vacillating between the urge to speak her mind, and her awareness of the proprieties of privacy.  Finally she chooses the former, along with the careful words of her delivery.  
  
"I am privy only to your more recent history, Mr. Drake."  She pauses in consideration. "But to my mind, a more selfish and cruel woman has never existed."  
  
Drake does not meet her eyes.  "I was a fool for her."  
  
A surge of vehemence bursts from Francine's pursed lips.  " ** _You_** were not the fool."  She lays her opposite hand on his wrist, forcing him to face her, before reiterating in a more gentle voice, "You were not the fool.  Remember that."  
  
There seems no more to be said for the moment, so the two continue on until a bench presents itself alongside the path.  With a gallant gesture, Bennet ushers Francine to the slotted seat, and they both sink gratefully off their feet.  Rolling her shoulders in a way Bennet finds most fetching, Francine closes her eyes and rubs her neck, striving to reach muscles stiff after a night spent sleeping in a chair.  
  
After watching her for a minute, Bennet suggests quietly, "Let me...," his lack of assuredness tacking the hint of a question mark to the end.    
  
Francine opens her eyes and lofts one interrogative eyebrow, not certain he is proposing what she hears from him.  
  
To be safe, Bennet retreats behind the guise of chivalry.  "The fault is mine you did not lay your head on a soft pillow last night."  
  
"Shall we scandalize all the Saturday garden-goers then?" Francine teases him merrily, but she slides nearer, closing the gap between them.  
  
Bennet rolls his tongue against the inside of his cheek, confidence and cleverness on the rise.  "I seem to recall someone insisting their reputation was theirs alone to define."  
  
"Touché," murmurs Francine, dipping her head in appreciation of his wit, before twisting to present her taut nape and bare shoulders.  
  
Two sets of lungs hold their contents, until the moment when Bennet's long fingers find Francine's skin.  She can feel the strength in his rough hands, in the exploratory way he finds the knots and kneads them with controlled gentleness.  Her flesh yields readily to his tender pressure and she surrenders in sensual relaxation.  She cannot help but respond with a muffled sigh, when his thumbs on the base of her skull leave his fingers no choice but to graze the hollow of her throat.  Her breathing comes a little quicker, and she wonders if he is immune to the moment.  
  
"You have a deft touch, Mr. Drake," she ventures after a time, her mind bridling all the while at the incongruity of such formality whilst his hands stroke her body.  
  
Swallowing hard to find his voice, Bennet scoffs, "These old brawler's mitts."  Meat hooks, according to Jackson.  Yet at the moment, he feels like a master sculptor, tracing and awakening the delicate contours of her soft sloping skin.  He is acutely aware of every gold and copper tendril of hair, every pale freckle disappearing inside her bodice, every note of the fragrance she wears.  Each beat of her heart becomes one with his through the pulse in her throat, fluttering beneath his callouses like a trapped bird.    
  
Finally, with a shuddering breath, Francine brings an end to it.  Turning to face him, she murmurs barely above a whisper, "Somewhere along the line, those hands learned some skills beyond the boxing ring."  
  
Her meaning is far from ambiguous, and Bennet belatedly realizes the need to remove his hat and place it in his lap.  A crooked smile parts his face at the compliment, and suddenly old memories begin to fade.  
  
Crossing her hands before her to demonstrate an ease she does not entirely feel, Francine tilts her chin and makes a bold request.  "Will you sing me the song from the beginning?  The Ballad of Bennet Drake?"  
  
" 'Tis no tale for gentle ears."  His past is an ugly place, a place not fit for a lady.  And yet, part of him longs to share it with this serene angel of mercy.  
  
Francine shakes her head in exasperation at his protectiveness.  "These ears are not so virgin as you think."    
  
Bennet's mind makes the obvious leap, and he begins to truly enjoy himself.  Propping one ankle on the opposite knee, he bends an elbow over the benchback, clearly settling in for a stay.  "If I do, will you introduce me to the young Frannie who loved poetry?"    
  
"That starry eyed scarecrow!"  Francine dismisses her younger self with an eyeroll and a turn of the head, but Drake's insistent gaze forces her to look back.  "Alright yes.  You first," she agrees brusquely.      
  
Sighing like a man about to embark into uncharted territory, Bennet queries, "Where do you want to begin?"  Without hesitation, a slender hand reaches up to squeeze his bicep.  
  
"Tell me what makes this snake devour itself."  
    
  
  
  
  



	6. CHAPTER SIX

 

 

"Uncle Ben will be right out to play toy soldiers with you."

Connor Judge smiles shyly and runs off to the garden as fast as his chubby little legs will carry him, clutching a miniature red-coated fusilier in each fist.  "Soldier!  Soldier!" he crows delightedly, as the clatter of his patent leathers meeting the tiles echoes behind him. 

Wearing a doting grin, Bennet straightens his spine and turns to the boy's father.  "Thank you for bringing him."  Seeing the child he once fostered as his own returned to his parents is bittersweet, just one more twist in his personal fortunes to weather.  Uppermost in his mind is Connor's happiness. 

"The poor lad must be sore confused right now," he worries aloud, gazing through the glass to where a fortress of blocks is taking shape on a brick retaining wall.

Jackson shrugs.  "He asks some questions, but his mother is practiced at distracting him."  He opens his satchel and begins to lay out his implements on an etched pewter salver.  "This week's distraction is a kitten."

Noting Drake's lingering concern, Reid adds, "Do not fret so, Bennet.  The young are resilient.  They have tougher skins than we realize."  His own Mathilda has taught him this -- the scars on her soul less visible than those on her father's back. 

Pushing his patient peremptorily into a chair, Jackson says, "Speaking of tough skin, let's see how this old leather hide is healing."

Obediently, Bennet pulls the chenille ends from inside his open neck shirt and unties the wine-coloured ascot he's taken to wearing.  "These things have never been much my style," he mutters in embarrassment, fumbling a bit with the knot.  Nevertheless, the starched collars he favored in the past are out of the question now, too abrasive against his newly knit flesh.  And a loosely tied scarf hides more than a precisely turned HRH or Eton.  

"Face into the light," commands Jackson while sweeping his surgeon's eye over Bennet's stitched wounds.  After a moment, he nods.  "Time to untruss this turkey!  Nurse!"  He looks at Reid.  "Some anesthesia!"

A beat goes by, before the inspector finds inspiration.  Then he steps to the glassware hutch, filling his large hands with three shot glasses and a bottle of whiskey.  He pours generously and they all toss back the familiar taste -- a taste of old times, a toast to old friendships.

"Nurse, spectacles!" Jackson barks next, holding out his hand with a flourish.  Reid pulls his own tiny wire-rimmed readers from a pocket and places them in the doctor's outstretched palm.  Squinting through the lenses at the jagged line of sutures, Jackson gestures impatiently.  "Can you get that lantern jaw out of my way?"  The unflattering and somewhat exaggerated portrayal is typical Jackson banter where Drake is concerned.  Bennet ignores it and dutifully cranes his bewhiskered promontory to the side. 

As the doctor carefully snips and slowly withdraws each length of catgut, Reid refills their tiny tumblers.  "How fares Miss Susan?" he asks conversationally.

"Feisty as always," replies Jackson, wincing a bit as one stitch resists his efforts and must be pulled quickly.  Bennet stares stoically ahead.  "She and I took our dinner out last evening."  There is a pregnant pause -- only one establishment in Whitechapel serves edible fare in a genteel atmosphere, a place well known by the trio.

Jackson confirms it as gently as possible, but he cannot keep a note of sarcasm from his voice.  "As predicted, Mrs. Drake has surfaced at Blewett's.  She's taken a room and performs once again, singing her heart out as though the last three years never happened."

With his chin stretched at an unnatural angle to facilitate Jackson's doctoring, Bennet can only react with his eyes -- a sudden surge of pain laced with a last flicker of hope.

"I do not advise you to go, Bennet," Reid cautions earnestly.  "That woman is poison to you."

Drake is silent, the muscles of his jaw tightening, making the last loop another that catches in the skin.  Jackson finally frees it and drops his instruments onto their tray.  "How many times will you let her hurt you?" he asks, not unkindly.  "Time to move on."

Rubbing his throat gingerly, almost expecting to find the same jagged bleeding mess beneath his fingers that he did that awful day, Bennet digests the advice of his friends. 

"Perhaps Rose would like a writ of divorce," he says at length, his countenance rueful.

"Perhaps **you** would," retorts the American glibly, gambling on his limited knowledge of the Commonwealth's laws regarding marriage dissolution, and gaining a sharp glance from Bennet.  "I see the way your nurse looks at you."

Annoyed, Drake hides behind his tipped back glass.  "Nonsense.  She does no more than her job."

Homer shares a wry eyebrow wag with the inspector.  "Her **_job_ ** is to assist the surgical staff at the university."  He stretches his words out with an air of mocking truth.  "Yet every day, she shows up faithfully at Edmund's door -- to make soup for you, to play draughts with you, to tuck you in at night." 

Bennet shifts uncomfortably.  It is almost as though the disagreeably direct doctor knows more than he can possibly guess.

Jackson continues his smug speculation.  "A man would be hard-pressed to find such dedication, even in a sweetheart.  Hell, no wife ever did all that for me!  You, Reid?"  He pivots to the big man.

Reid sips his drink, contemplating the evidence, recalling the intimate candlelit dinner he'd interrupted.  "Perhaps Miss Francine also tends to scars deeper within," he says with a thoughtful tilt of the head.

Bennet gazes back and forth between his friends, confusion written in the asymmetrical planes of his face.  Yet Jackson notices, the damaged detective does not dismiss the theory.

"You're nothing if not a man of honour, Drake."  The doctor effortlessly manages to make his shrewd character assessment sound like both a positive trait and a limiting flaw.  "If you have any inclinations to reciprocate, you'd best free up your dance card."

Jackson lofts his libation, waiting for the others to join him, and Bennet finds himself refilling his shot to toast he knows not what.

 

 

************

 

 

Ninety-one....Ninety-two.....Ninety three...

Francine ticks off the strokes in her mind, drawing the hairbrush of bone and quill slowly across her scalp and through her rosy champagne-coloured cascade.  How many times she has lost count, she does not know.  This end-of-day ritual, like indeed her entire Sunday, has been nagged by the presence of another, there in her imagination only.  Her morning stroll along the hedgerows of Hyde Park proved inadequate to clear her head -- her thoughts were ever in the East End.  Returning home and donning a simple cotton blouse and chambray skirt, she had industriously straightened and dusted her cozy cottage abode, but to no avail against the intruder.

Bennet Drake.  The more time she spends...the more she knows of him -- the less she trusts herself.  She worries that she, they, are about to cross a line, or have already done so.  Moving from patient/caregiver to friends was a seamless transition -- hardly professional on her part, yet perhaps inevitable.  She met a need in him, he sparked a fascination in her.  There is so much more beneath the bruised and embattled shell she nursed back from the brink of oblivion.  She finds it extraordinary, that a man who has seen and done and been victim of so much violence in his life, can yet possess real gentleness at his core.

Francine closes her eyes at the memory of his gentleness, when his hands touched her skin.  That was the moment she realized the truth of the two-pronged precipice upon which she stands -- the passion and the perilousness. She has known so little comfort in her life, so little tenderness.  How can she help but have her sensibilities slide beyond the platonic?

The war in Francine's head goes on, as she resolutely shakes off the sensual side-show.  He is a married man, she reminds herself sadly.  And she has seen some and sensed more, of the conflict in his soul over his broken marriage.  What use has she for a man still pining for his past?

Setting aside her grooming tool once she reaches the century count, Francine pulls her long fall of hair over one shoulder.  Starting behind her ear, she divides out three sections, plaiting the silken strands with practiced fingers. 

What folly to entertain these feelings!  They will surely come to nought.  Bennet Drake will reconcile with his wife, or he will not.  Either way, he will pass from her life, and soon.  Her own future is assured, and it is a well-cushioned one.  She is more fortunate than most wives who outlive their husbands; she has a means of livelihood in her nursing, and stands to inherit a handsome sum as the only child of a land holding family.  She will not find herself on public assistance, nor will she spend her twilight years in a pensioner's home.  But she will likely spend those years alone.

Her reverie is thankfully interrupted by a rap on the door.  Frowning in annoyance at being able to only half-finish her braiding, Francine rises and  parts the ruffled curtains to view the street front.  She sees the lamplighters have already come and gone on her lane.  Under the diffuse parchment-coloured beam of the gas lantern opposite her door, she makes out a bicycle propped against the lightpost.

A messenger then, she tells herself.  Likely another inquiry from the university regarding her return.  With little concern, she goes to the foyer and opens the portal, catching a short young man in Post Office livery as he hastily snuffs a cigarette.

"A telegram, ma'am.  From Wales, ma'am," he says, as he holds out the folded beige envelope tied with black ribbon and seal.

Francine pales, and her heart sinks.

 


	7. CHAPTER SEVEN ;-)

With the same sharp intent he uses to skewer a confession from a suspect, Edmund spears a slab of bread with the toasting tines.  Patiently he suspends his breakfast slice over the gas ring, watching as the blue flames coax a golden hue from edge to edge.  With his other hand, he brushes into a pile the crumb evidence of another's earlier meal.  He'd heard Mathilda stirring before the sun, had found her gone by the time he dressed and crowded the kitchen doorway with his plaid clad silhouette.  His over-protective nature wishes she had left a note, and he purses his lips slightly in annoyance.  While he appreciates the care she has taken to set his place, he is scarce mollified, even with the precious presence of a soft-boiled egg snug under its crocheted cozy.  Expelling a sigh, he takes a seat at the table and reaches for the butter.   
  
A few seconds later the tap of light footfalls reaches his ears from the entry hall.  He pays little mind, thinking Miss Sewell has for some reason come early at the start of the week.  He looks up with delight when instead his beloved daughter bustles into the room, bearing the morning edition.   
  
"Good morning!", the inspector says in some surprise.  "Where are you off to so early?  Besides the corner scribbler's stand," he adds with a grateful nod to the gift she has brought.  
  
Dropping the newspages beside her father's plate, Mathilda bends to plant a kiss atop his head.  "Good morning!" she echoes happily.  "Did you think me negligent in not informing you of my whereabouts?"  
  
Reid's eyes dart semi-guiltily from her face to his food, then back.  "I will never stop being your father, Mathilda."  
  
"Nor would I ever want you to," she responds with sudden sincerity, the lost years never far from either of their minds.  As though to bless their bond, the rising sun sneaks a ray past the curtains to light their smiling faces.   
  
In due course marmalade follows butter, after which Reid turns his attention to tapping the tip off his egg.  "Monday is not Sergeant Drummond's free day," he observes, having memorized the duty roster where Drumm's name appears.  
  
"No," affirms Mathilda.  "Thursday."  She is halfway to the door.  "I must be to the university by eight o'clock.  Francine told me of  a lecture class in forensics I might attend."  
  
Reid is both pleased and proud of his daughter's inquisitive mind, though he fears what it might mean for his pocketbook.  "And how much is this class going to cost me?" he asks wearily, while stirring the creamy goodness inside his eggshell.   
  
Mathilda laughs lightly.  "There is no cost, provided I claim no credits towards a degree."  
  
An indulgent smile parts Reid's lips.  "Off with you then."  He waves her away, but holds her in his eyes until she is out of sight.  Then, plucking his spectacles from his waistcoat, he snaps open the newspaper.

 

 

 

*****************

 

 

 

 

Angling the weighty, long-handled mirror in his hand, Bennet examines the puckered flesh of his throat.  The skin feels tight, almost as though it might pull apart again, and the itch invades his consciousness at inconvenient times, most noticeably when he tries to sleep.  He studies the face that stares back at him from the silvered surface -- the mournful eyes, the high brow, the hollow cheeks, the once-broken nose --  and now this ghastly reminder of horror.  Hardly a face to woo a lady, and yet......

Laying the looking glass aside, he digs to the bottom of his leather shaving kit until he finds what he seeks --  a square stoppered bottle, lately slipped into a corner of disuse.  He is relieved to find its contents not totally evaporated. 

Biceps tensing outside the white singlet he wears, Bennet pops the recalcitrant cork and tips a bit of the spice-infused aftershave into his palm.  With careful fingers, he pats the astringent along his cheeks and jawline, judiciously avoiding the tender area below his freshly trimmed chin hair.  The ritual ends when he runs his hands backwards through his shaggy locks, depositing the last traces of scent there.

Behind him, the parcel from the launderer lies half open atop the towel cabinet.  From it, he carefully selects a soft grey shirt, shrugging and buttoning and tucking it around his torso.  A fresh ascot follows, chosen to match the blue of his eyes, and knotted with a growing skill.  On this day he adds a pin-striped waistcoat, a sartorial layer he has not bothered with since....Before.  Finally, after an automatic check of the hour, Bennet Drake pockets his chain watch and steps out to meet a new sunrise. 

 

 

 

 

**************

 

 

 

 

"Mornin'," Bennet growls agreeably, as he seats himself opposite the inspector.

"Good morning, Bennet," replies Reid, his nostrils flaring slightly as the unmistakable aroma of Bay Rum cologne drifts across the table.  His eyebrows rise but he says nothing, instead taking a sip from his cup.  He nods towards the stove.  "It will take some doing to bring the water back to a boil, but there is no lack of eggs."

Bennet busies himself pouring coffee.  "Thought I might wait for Miss Sewell," he suggests off-handedly, glancing again at his timepiece.  "She's usually here by now."

Folding his paper with an air of conclusion, Reid lifts his tall frame from the chair.  "Her Sunday of leisure must have agreed with her," he teases.  "Perhaps she overslept."  The attempt at levity falls flat.  Drake gives him a withering look, while reaching for the discarded headlines.

"Happy hunting," Bennet wishes his friend, who nods once in understanding.

After a final pocket patdown for his belongings and a farewell wave, Reid makes his way to exit the house, pausing in the open doorway as always to survey his surroundings before stepping over the threshold.  His routine policeman's caution finds nothing amiss, but his keen eye quickly spots something out of place.

A vellum missive sits atop the bristlecone boot mat, held in place by a squat brown bottle.  The detective in Reid makes him examine the flagon first.  It appears to come from an herbalist with a shop on Apothecary Street, and bears the label 'Oil of Everlast'.  The envelope is addressed to him.  He carries both items inside, opening the unsealed flap and reading as he walks.

Bennet meets the inspector's eyes with trepidation when he returns, sensing bad news from the big man's demeanor.  Reid shares the letter aloud, his mellifluous voice no salve for the blow it delivers.

_Dear Mr. Reid,_

_Yesterday I received word that my parents both perished in a boating accident off the Welsh coast.  I must go tend to affairs there.  I know not when or if I may return, nor what shall be my future.  But in any event, our patient is well on the road to healing.  Have Mr. Drake use this oil once the stitches are gone.  It will tame the weal and soften the scarring.  It has been a pleasure to be of service to you both._

He hands the message to a stunned-looking Drake.  "And a solicitor's address in Cardigan to wire her final wages."

The silence lies heavily as Bennet reads Francine's words for himself.  Reid looks in some discomfiture at the herbalist's vial in his hand, then sets it beside Drake's cup.  "I'm sorry, Bennet," he says once again.  "I know she brightened your days."

Tossing the letter onto the table, Bennet works his jaw for a moment before shrugging resignedly.  "Well, that's it then.  May as well go back to my own gaff."  He is loathe to call it home.

Reid offers a matching shrug, but his eyes fairly bleed kindness.  "You are welcome under my roof for as long as you need, Bennet."

Swallowing hard, Drake turns his face to the window.  "Thank you for everything, Edmund.  I expect I've recuperated as much as I'm like to."

After a moment, Reid takes his leave, pausing on his way past to press a comforting paw on Bennet's desultory shoulder set.

Only after he is alone does Bennet reach for the other token left on the doorstep, folding his hand tightly around the flared bottle as though grasping something to keep it from slipping away.

 


	8. CHAPTER EIGHT

 

 

 

 

 

Waddling heavily like a fat alderman, a big brown rat trundles along the empty alley to disappear down an open sewer drain.  Overhead, grey scudding clouds race each other across the sky ahead of an upper atmospheric disturbance.  Funneled between the abandoned warehouses down below, the wind picks up speed, rattling the shattered windowpanes and the loosely-bolted fire escape of the old wharfside depository.  Two pairs of eyes scour the dusty pink-brick facade of the building in search of a wolf; the hunter has become the hunted. 

"There!" shouts Reid suddenly, pointing to a corner of the roof.  A flat face in a derby hat disappears from view, even as the inspector and the doctor clamber noisily up the wrought iron stairs.  Halfway to the top, Reid makes a futile grab for his bowler as it becomes airborne.  Both men briefly watch the iconic headwear twist to the ground on a gust, before renewing the chase with even more urgency.  On the uppermost landing they must help each other to clear the distance from railing to rooftop, veritably throwing themselves over the lip into a gasping, plaid-flapping heap.  Quickly they scramble to their feet, casting about for their prey.  They spot him on the far side of the flat expanse, facing them in a feral crouch.  Jackson draws his revolver, and they both advance slowly and carefully across the slick tin plates that seal the storehouse.

"You have nowhere to go, Nathaniel," Reid calls out, the wind whipping his words across the distance.  "Even as we speak, your brother is being detained by his erstwhile colleagues at the Yard."

The hunted man makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat, crabbing backwards like a cornered animal, with no heed for the cowl-shaped roof vent behind him.

Reid and Jackson share a glance, recognizing how close Nathaniel is to the edge, realizing he is headed for the obstruction.  Relentlessly they move forward, Reid adding by way of distraction, "No longer will you prowl the streets of Whitechapel."

Taking another blind step backwards, Nathaniel flicks his eyes furtively from policeman to doctor and back again.  "Did that other copper live?" he asks, more curious than calculating.

"He did," asserts Reid with a small, triumphant smile, as he pushes his windswept hair back into place.  "He will testify at your trial."

"You'll hang beside your stinking sibling," promises Jackson, cocking his gun for effect.  "Unless I shoot you right now."

Nathaniel's gaze narrows and he licks his lips.  "Should have taken a bigger bite of that one," he chokes out in guttural regret.  "But the taste was foul."

Gritting his teeth, Jackson lunges forward angrily, with Reid's hand clamped to his arm in restraint.  One more reflexive jump backwards and Nathaniel comes up against the shin-high vent, off balance and distracted.  His leather-soled shoes gain no purchase on the sheet metal surface beneath his kicking feet, and with a grunt he tips head over heels.  A few wild heartbeats pass while he clutches desperately after a handhold.  For a moment, his fingers find the cold concrete trim and he hangs, five stories above the cobblestones.  The only sound is the far-off horn of a tugboat on the Thames.  Even the wind has quieted.

Reid and Jackson stand their ground in silence until eventually gravity wins out, and the streets of Whitechapel far below claim another life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

****************  

 

 

 

 

 

 

THUNK!  THUNK!  THUNK!  THUNK!

THWAP!  THWAP!  THWAP!  THWAP!

The push and pull of the taps is like a percussive symphony, underlying the baritone buzz of the early evening crowd at the Brown Bear.  Spilling in from shift change, the coppers of H Division take over the tavern on most nights -- some drinking to remember, most to forget.  The barkeep plays his levers once again, and caramel-coloured liquid pours into a fresh quartet of pints.  One he secretes for himself below the counter; the other three were pulled without preamble for the familiar trio who've just taken up residence at the end of the bar.  Catching the big man's eye, the pubowner sends the first glass down the mahogany runway in a sloshing slide.

Reid halts the incoming ale with a manicured paw, frowning when a bit of the yeasty brown liquid splashes his cuff.   With his other hand, he plucks his recently recovered and resuscitated bowler from the counter top and puts it on the empty stool to his right.  The other two men hastily move their own hats out of the line of fire.  Passing the first and second malty missiles to his thirsty companions, Reid claims the third, then raises a cautionary finger to forestall the first sip.

"A toast, gentlemen," he intones.  Drake and Jackson pause with their drinks halfway to their lips.  The doctor knows what comes next, but Bennet does not.

"To a hunt ended."

A beat goes by, while the inspector's words take root in Bennet's brain.  So this is why he's been jollied out of his lonely rooms and drug along to the pub.  The Brothers Dove -- two sides of the same corroded coin, one smooth, the other rough.  Two monsters off the streets.

"Well done, Edmund," Drake says quietly, hoisting his glass and wetting a throat suddenly tight with emotion.  "Where did you find them?"

Reid savors his drink for a moment before replying, the taste of victory every bit as complex as that of the sweet dark ale rolling across his tongue. 

"Augustus was apprehended in Dover," he reports, "trying to board the ferry under an assumed name."  In truth, there had been some opposition in the Yard to the manpower required for monitoring the major points of egress to the Continent.  But in the end, the deployment had paid off handsomely.

"And the other one?"  Drake will not say his name, will take no chance of summoning that feral face back into his nightmares.  "Where was he hiding?"

Signalling the bartender for a whisky back, Jackson delivers a smug epitaph in answer.  "A rat always returns to his warren."

Bennet nods slightly, though his soul shudders at the memory of dark tunnels and teeth-baring things scurrying in the darkness. "The wharfside."  He intercepts Jackson's scotch when it arrives and tosses it back.  "I hope you cornered him in the open."

"We did -- a rooftop," Reid affirms, rapping his knuckles on the bar, pointing to the empty drink, and raising two fingers.  A pair of shot glasses appear along with the half full bottle.

The inspector shares a portentous  glance with his American.  "Nathaniel suffered a fatal fall," he says from under lowered eyebrows.

"While fleeing justice," interjects Jackson quickly, rubbing a hand across one salt-and-pepper stubbled cheek. 

Amidst the rumble of conversation around them, Drake glances back and forth at the two gents flanking him, but asks no more questions.  It would not be the first time the scales were balanced without aid of a magistrate, when avenging one of their own.

"Augustus will hang," Reid assures his friend, flexing his fingers as though he would like to be the one to pull the trap lever.  The sooner this world is quit of the loathsome pair, the better.

Jackson adds his own encouragement.  "And you will live to see it."

Bennet heaves a massive sigh before topping off their tiny glasses.  "I will live," he agrees in a quiet voice,"but I will not see it.  I have no stomach for any of it anymore." 

It feels proper to say it aloud, this realization that has been sneaking up on him since returning to his empty abode.  There is no more coppering in him -- no more hunger for truth, no more taste for violence, no more thirst for revenge, nothing.  Just life, life devoid of purpose.

Reid masks his concern with initial silence, not entirely surprised to see Bennet leave the force.  Jackson likewise is uncharacteristically subdued at the news, though he expected much the same.  Few in H Division ever gave so much but gleaned so little as Bennet Drake.  Yet it is no small feat to remake a man in the world of Whitechapel.

"What will you do?" queries the practical inspector after a moment, praying that Drake will not descend into the depths of despair he once did.

A wry smile tweaks the corners of Bennet's mouth.  "The Customs House is always in need of night guards."  An understatement -- the recent endgame might have played out very differently if the Queen's vaults had been better guarded.

Glowering uncomfortably, Jackson remarks, "Night shift is shit work."

"Pays well," counters Drake doggedly.  "Might as well.  I don't sleep much anyway."

He shrugs, concealing an inward sigh, pushing away the memory of sonnets at midnight and once-sweet slumber.

 

 

 

 

 


	9. CHAPTER NINE

Like an echo of Christmas past, the merry jingle of bells hanging on the door lever announces the first customer of the day.  Stepping long to clear the crimson tide running through the gutter outside, Bennet crosses the threshold, his nasal passages balking at the stench. In past years, he might have needed to deploy his gentleman's square as filter mask, but now he finds the environs of a Whitechapel butcher shop no more malodorous than Jackson's deadroom.

His eyes make an involuntary circuit overhead, drawn by the rafters festooned with sausages.  In the corner stands an oaken block table with hatchet-shaped blade embedded, flanked along two walls by a pincer formation of hanging carcasses on giant hooks.  Halfway across the room, a wheelbarrow lined with chunks of ice makes a bed for a pair of dead-eyed sturgeon.  Closer at hand, a glass-fronted display case filled with savory pastries doubles as a counter, behind which looms the establishment's proprietor.

"G'day," grunts Bennet, bending at the waist to peruse the offerings inside the smudged window box.  Although he has patronized this meat monger for some years, of late he has become its most reliable daybreaker, en route home most mornings from his shift at the Customs House.

Wiping his hands ineffectually on his oilcloth apron, the burly knifeman queries, "What'll it be today, mate?"

Tapping the glass with a long forefinger, Bennet replies desultorily, "One o' them porkpies.  Fresh, are they?"  He glances up.

"Browned up before mornin's light."  Reaching a muscular bare arm in from his side of the enclosure, the butcher extracts a deep dish round and proceeds to wrap it in brown paper.  "Sale on bacon," he continues, hoping to chat up some further business.  "Half stone only a shilling."  When he receives no reply, the man raises his eyes and adds a bit aggressively, "This week only."

Bennet declines with a quick head shake.  "That's more'n I can use.  It's just myself now."  There is, however, the matter of supper that evening.  "I'll take a mutton chop, too," he decides suddenly, remembering the spring mint his nose had noticed alongside the house yesterday.

While the carver busies himself in the corner with carcass and cleaver, Drake cranes his neck to bring into view the lurid front page of the fishwrap stacked at the ready.  So engrossed is he in the latest sensationalist newsrag, he does not bother to turn when the door bells tingle again.

"Right with you, ma'am," the butcher calls over, elbow deep in an ovine body cavity.  "Can I interest you in a nice hogget shoulder while I'm at it?"

"No thank you," a husky, oh-so-familiar voice behind Bennet says.

With an inhalation so sharp it hollows his cheeks, Drake turns to greet his estranged wife.

"Hello, Rose."

"Hello, Bennet."

She at least has the decency to turn away under his gaze, after her betrayal and all it had cost him and the others she professed to care about.  She is dressed in shades of scarlet that set off her dark hair, with the net veil of a tiny hat brushing her wide cheekbones and lending an air of mystery to her azure eyes.  He finds her as lovely as ever, yet it is the cruel set of her mouth as she cursed him in the streets and in their sleeping chambers that stays with him.  A chance meeting was perhaps inevitable, but now that it is here, he finds it less painful than he imagined.

"You've moved on, I hear," Bennet ventures, shoving his hands in his pockets for want of anything better to do with them.  Meanwhile, the meat seller watches with interest.

Hoisting her hems to step through the sawdust that covers the floor, Rose moves tangentially around him.  "I told you I wasn't cut out to be no bobby's wife," she answers defensively, almost accusingly. 

Weariness pervades Bennet's voice and whispers from his lungs.  "No you weren't," he agrees quietly, pausing for all the depths of meaning in those words to settle between them.  The muscles of his jaw tense, biting back the bitterness.  "What was I then, Rose?  A stepping stone?  A step backwards?"  He moves closer, challenging her space.  "A misstep?"

"The last one," she says softly, but her eyes meet his shouting volumes.

After a long moment, Bennet nods once, tersely, and steps back.  "Shall I send around some papers from the solicitor?"  Giving the idea the light of day somehow brings it closer to fruition.  Were this encounter never to have occurred, he might never have found the impetus to make the final move.

Rose looks up almost too eagerly from toying with her cuffs.  "That would be best, Bennet.  I'll sign anything you send."

Drake shrugs his elastic features.  "Might not be for a month or two," he tells her, stopping short of offering an apology for the wait.  He is finished with apologizing to this woman.  "I'll have to save up for the fee."

"I'm sure Mr. Reid would give you an advance," Rose suggests helpfully and perhaps hopefully.

"I toil no longer at Leman Street," reveals Bennet in a clipped burst, his annoyance directed at the eager-eared butcher who is now rolling the solitary chop in newsprint not more than two feet away.

An inward sniff of surprise greets this news, but Rose seems otherwise disinterested in his personal situation.  "Well, I'm sure you'll get the bob together somehow."

One last stab of pensiveness strikes Bennet's heart, opening a vein of nostalgia.  "We had some happy days together, didn't we, Rose?"

"Lovely," she responds automatically, echoing the day early on when she used the same adjective to dismiss him as a mere friend.  Whatever they'd had, it has come full circle now -- that much is clear.

"Send me the papers, Bennet," she says in a hollow tone, turning away.

Closing his hand around his purchases, Drake mutters to the other man, "Put it on my monthly, mate."  As he strides hurriedly to the exit, he hears the lady place her order.

"Two pork chops, please."  The bells jangle angrily.  "And a half stone of bacon.  We like it so."

The door nearly comes off its hinges with the slam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_\(unit\))   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to Wikipedia, a stone weight of measure at a butcher's in the 1800's varied from 5-8 pounds.


	10. CHAPTER TEN

LEMAN STREET  
  
Black on white, the letters adorn the chipped sign with its notched corners, affixed high on the slate grey bricks of the anchor building.  As Francine steps from the hansom at the intersection, she cranes her neck upwards, trying to get her bearings, and almost misses the street marker behind the lamp post that blocks her view.  Pressing payment into the cabbie's sweaty palm, she makes sure he is well on his way before embarking down the pavement amidst the jumble of clacks and clangs and crowdnoise -- amidst the jumble of her own emotions.  
  
Over two months have passed since the day she left London so suddenly in the pre-dawn, lost in a fog of grief and drowning in a storm of responsibility.  The weeks in Wales have centered her soul and cleared her mind -- laying her parents to rest, sorting their affairs and hers going forward, making decisions, turning a page.  Now she is back in Whitechapel with one last loose end to tend, and her destination all too soon before her.  Nervous fingers tug at the lace cuffs of her gown -- a satin creation in the shades of mourning, with a creamy filigree insert accenting the bodice.  Yet Francine is not the sad sparrow from head to foot that society dictates.  Her one act of defiance sits rakishly atop her red-gold crown -- a rich lavender-coloured doll hat, which she now adjusts with care.  Then, resolutely, she pushes open the heavy door, leaving the cacophony of the street for the chaos of the station house.  
  
Inside the air is thick with the smell of tobacco and the sounds of commotion.  A large man in wrist cuffs is shouting obscene objections to his incarceration and lashing out at anyone nearby.  Francine steps back quickly to make way for the uniforms rushing over to subdue the obdurate fellow with elbows and fists.  She looks around hopefully for a familiar face, but finds none.  
  
Manning the desk is a young constable with his teenage years still fresh on his face, a recruit newly inducted into the ranks of both police and adults.  Tearing his gaze from the ruckus to the advancing visitor, he does a sharp take and his eyes pop, at the sight of a well-dressed, well-scrubbed member of the fairer sex in the squad room.  He has heard tell of the days when the birds of Tenter Street enjoyed the favors of the H Division bobbies and vice versa, but those times and that establishment are long gone.  The current crop of Whitechapel wantons is more crude and less comely than the lady seeking his attention with a bright smile.   
  
"M -- M'am?" he stammers, willing his cheeks not to flush.  
  
Francine perches her gloved hands on the edge of the counter.  "Might I speak with Inspector Drake, if he is free?"  She wouldn't expect him to take part in the melee behind her -- not anymore.  She hopes he sits at his desk somewhere, studying reports.  
  
Incomprehension slackens the ginger-fuzzed jaw opposite.  "No one here like that," the youth returns uncertainly, though he has yet to learn the names of those pensioned off.  
  
Francine's face clouds with matching confusion.  "Mr. Reid?" she queries.  "Captain Jackson?"  Her voice trails away and she takes a step back.  Perhaps it was a mistake to come.  Too much has changed.  
  
Rescue comes in the form of a dapper-suited detective who swaggers over from the open doorway against which he has been leaning and listening.  Hooking his thumbs in his wide lapels, he introduces himself.  
  
"Frank Thatcher, at your service," he declares with a confident smile.  "Inspector Reid is out on a case.  But the doctor is in house."  
  


 

*****************

 

 

Pulling his eye away from the ocular, Jackson massages the bridge of his nose, before sliding his spectacles off his head and onto his face.  His pen scrapes noisily across the ledger at his wrist, leaving a trail of jottings that only he can read.  He pauses, flipping his glasses up momentarily to re-check something with the microscope, then resumes writing.  He's been at this for most of the day, comparing the fibers from various unsolved crime scenes that Reid is determined to link.  He welcomes the interruption when Thatcher's mustachioed  mug appears at the doorway.

"There's a bird here to see you," the detective announces with a sly gleam in his eye.

"Think my past is catching up with me, Thatch?" jokes Jackson unconcernedly, sensing the other's salacious interest.

Thatcher gives a snort, wagging an eyebrow suggestively.  "Not unless you and Inspector Drake share a _'past'._ He was her first choice."

At this, Jackson perks up.  Of course, he and Drake _do_ share space in the boudoir diary of one lass in particular, but Jackson is fairly certain that thorny rose now blooms in a new flower bed.  He knows Bennet has been to see the solicitor. 

"Well show her in!"  commands Jackson impatiently, tossing off his eye wear.  "I cannot _wait_ to be surprised!"

With a quick check of the knot in his silken cravat, Frank swivels on his heel, nursing a smirk as he leaves. 

The doctor spends a few  moments sweeping his surroundings for anything which might be deemed disagreeable to a person of delicate constitution, opting for the quick transfer of a glass jar filled with formaldehyde and eyeballs to a drawer.  He is relieved to find his caution unnecessary, when a fellow medical professional steps through the portal.  

Francine's roaming observation takes in the famed deadroom with interest:  the floor to ceiling storage cupboards, the deep white sinks, the stacked lockers ready to surrender their occupants to the porcelain cadaver table -- and everywhere tile, a potter's dream of ceramic.  When her gaze finally comes to rest on the American, she nods a greeting and smiles.

"Well, well," chuckles Jackson, rising to his feet with a sardonic grin.  "I'd call you a sight for sore eyes, but it ain't my eyes that are sore."

Francine squints, not quite following his meaning.  "Nice laboratory," she compliments, one professional to another.

Rubbing the back of his neck a bit self-consciously, the doctor waves his other hand in a careless round-up encompassing his workspace.  "Reid spared no farthing, I'll give him that."  He glances down spitefully at the scope that has been making him cross-eyed since breakfast.  "Except the damn microglass -- that could be upgraded."

Francine drops her head, hiding a twitch of amusement.  "You and Inspector Reid are well?"  Inwardly, she cringes at the manner in which she is circumventing her true purpose in coming, burying the lead like an overly clever newsman. 

"Right as rain," asserts Jackson heartily.  "We apprehended the Dove boys."

Francine's features spark with enthusiasm.  "Indeed!  I saw the papers when I arrived."  She gives a soft sigh of finality.  "A relief to all."

Crooking a thumb in his waistcoat pocket, Jackson watches as she takes a few aimless steps around the room, confident she will shortly come to the point.  He _might_ volunteer word of Bennet, but he would much rather observe her demeanor when she broaches the subject herself.

Eventually, Francine speaks again.  "I had hoped to pay my respects to Mr. Drake, but the young man says he is not here," she suggests a tinge regretfully, as she removes her gloves to run a finger across the gleaming countertops.  "Perhaps tomorrow?"

" 'Fraid not," is the response.  Francine looks up sharply.  "He turned in his warrant card."

Surprise and concern knit Francine's forehead for a moment.  Then she takes a quick breath, releasing it slowly.  "Ah, well then....Give him my felicitations if you see him."  She tucks her gloves into her beaded clutch in preparation for leaving, before looking up a bit sadly.  "How does he fare?"

"You must ask him that yourself!"  exhorts Jackson, in no mind to see her do otherwise.  With typical flourish, he rips a corner from his ruled pad and scribbles hastily.  "Here is the address."

Caught unawares by his vehemence, Francine finds herself speechless.  Visiting the abode of Mr. and Mrs. Drake had decidedly **not** been part of her plan.  In truth, she had intended to say a sad farewell in a safe place, here at Leman Street.  If he has returned to the site of domestic bliss, she reasons there is a better than even chance he is not there alone.  She doesn't trust herself to strike the right tone in that awkward situation.  And in any event, a woman -- a wife --  always knows. 

As Jackson steps forward to hand her the jagged piece of paper, Francine reaches for it reflexively, then hesitates halfway.

"I think I should not call upon him in his home.  It would perhaps prove...inconvenient."  She meets the doctor's eyes directly, hoping her meaning is discernible.

Jackson completes the distance between them, folding her fingers around the address slip.

"Trust me, Miss Sewell," he says with a wink.  "Drake will welcome your company."

 

 

 


	11. CHAPTER ELEVEN

With a bored expression and a small sigh, Bennet slaps his meat between two slices of course bread.  Another cold roast beef sandwich on another workday afternoon before another dreary shift at the Customs House.  Guard duty is steady work, for that he is thankful.  But it is mind-numbing labour, soulless hours spent with no tangible result at the end of the day.  Every night, he patrols the corridors of the Queen's vaults with only the rats and the ghosts of his past for company.  He has striven to avoid falling into a relationship with the bottle, yet the temptation is there -- coming home to an empty abode each day.  It is not that he spends his time wishing for what once was, rather that he has no context for what will be.  He entertains no urge to seek out anyone or anything at Blewett's.  That part of him is devoid of what once dwelt there.  In the end, he was left feeling used.  And he has put it, put her, behind him.  In fact, the solicitor has papers ready for delivery and signature next week.   
  
Still standing at the waist high work counter that abuts the open window, Bennet watches the sun as it dips to the west on its arc to the hidden horizon.  Soon it will be lost behind the soot-streaked factories and warehouses of Whitechapel.  He eats without tasting, chewing methodically, his memory triggered by the warm light of spring and the twitter of the sparrows in the eaves.   
  
_The sun still shines...The birds still sing...None of us knows what lies around the next corner....  
  
_ Her voice weaves through his mind and his heart, leaving naught but bleakness in its wake without her presence.  There seems to be nothing around the corner for Bennet Drake except a lifetime of loneliness.  He imagines she is back at the university hospital by now, cheering another man with her optimistic outlook, confounding another man with her lively wit.  **Healing another man with her gentle hands.** The thought boils up momentarily inside him like some acrid chemistry concoction of Jackson's, but he tamps down his irrational jealousy.  He has no right, no hold on her.   
  
The grinding of his jaw around the last dry bites of food creates enough headnoise to mask the first round of taps on the door.  The second round is lost to the pop of the flip-top ale he uncorks to wash down his final swallows.  Only as he is wiping his bearded mouth on his undershirt sleeve, does the sound of louder rapping capture his attention.  Startled, Bennet nips another swig before pushing home the ceramic stopper and going to the door.  He catches her as she is about to turn away.  
  
"Frannie...Miss Sewell!" he corrects himself hastily.  He has come to think of her in the fond familiar, however he has no leave to voice that private indulgence.  During the silence that follows, a warm smile inches across his face, touching even his melancholy eyes.   
  
Francine blinks twice, taking in his rough-hewn hand on the doorknob, his broad shoulders supporting the braces of blue serge uniform trousers, his openly welcoming and happy visage.  
  
"I thought I might make a house call," she suggest coyly, her own face mirroring his for elation.  "Is this a convenient time?"  Her eyes flicker to the room behind him.  
  
" ** _Most_** convenient," Bennet assures her.  Stepping aside, he cups Francine's elbow, ushering her through the doorway before she proves to be an illusion born of his fantasies.    
  
Francine allows herself to be escorted to a seat on the sofa.  "Do I not interrupt your...domesticity?" she queries politely, while taking a careful look around for signs of a feminine presence.  She sees evidence of a female decorative touch, but there are too many dirty teacups and discarded shirts over chairbacks to bespeak any recent wifely influence.     
  
Bennet follows her gaze, then clears his throat in embarrassment.  "As you can see, my domesticity is a mite lacking."  He collars a handful of dirty laundry and stuffs it behind a throw pillow, then turns back with a nervous shrug.   
  
Francine laughs aloud.  "I did not come to critique your housekeeping, Mr. Drake."  In the spirit of the moment, she rescues his guard's cap from the second half of the sofa seat and places it on the coffee table -- a subtle invitation.  
  
The couch cushions shift as Bennet sinks down beside her, still smiling.  "I am surpassing pleased to see you."  
  
"And I, you.  You look well."  Francine meets his eyes for a long moment, until Bennet eventually senses some underlying sadness therein, and recalls his manners.  
  
"My condolences for your parents," he says formally, for the first time focusing on the shade of her attire, rather than how fetching she looks in it.  Francine accepts his sympathies with a dip of the chin.  
  
"As I recollect, you have no siblings," Bennet continues after a protracted interval, foundering to fill the empty air.  How could he ever forget the tales of childhood they shared, once upon a time when he was in her care.   
  
"Your memory is keen, Mr. Drake.  And your words correct," Francine allows, quietly pleased that he remembers.  Then her tone turns pensive.  "Suddenly, I am truly alone in this world."  
  
Once again, Bennet's barely realized feelings cause him to blurt out his truth.  "A woman such as yourself should not be alone."  
  
Francine's heart flutters.  "And what sort of woman is that?"  she prompts, both touched and curious.  His thoughts of her should not matter so much, yet they do.  
  
In all sincerity, Bennet answers, "One so kind and bright of mind."  
  
Francine glances down, disconcerted, even as her ear catches the cadence.  Amusement wars with amazement and wins.  
  
"Poetry," she observes gaily, raising her eyes once more.  
  
With chagrin, Bennet realizes what a rhyming fool he must sound.  To cover his discomfiture, he changes the subject.  
  
"I trust you have dispensed with the family affairs and are now returned to your work at the hospital."  
  
"Yes and no," Francine equivocates, dreading the telling of what she must now impart.  Inhaling her apprehension, she folds her hands and proceeds.  "With my parents' death, my family's shore front estate passed to me."  In the pause that follows, she leans forward, engaging him with her body language.  "Have you ever been to the Welsh coast?"  
  
Bennet indicates a negative.  Francine's voice ticks up in volume, her enthusiasm bleeding through.  
  
"It is a tranquil and healing place -- a magical place," she tells him.  "And the good people of the village have need of someone with basic medical skills.  The nearest hospital is fifty kilometers away."  Bennet shutters his eyes, willing her not to say what comes next.  "I plan to refurbish the manor and operate it as a holiday boarding house, whilst providing nursing advice wherever I may."  
  
"So you will leave London," Bennet says dully, his heart closing before it barely had time to open.  
  
Francine nods.  "I tarry here only long enough to tender my resignation and surrender my lease."  She reaches out a hand to his forearm, while he steeples his fingers between his thighs, shoulders bent, refusing to look at her.  
  
"One thing I have come to know," she continues with conviction.  "These city streets sap the soul of both man and woman."  More gently now.  "At Stone's Throw, I was reminded that a place exists where beauty and nature, life and promise, still hold sway."  
  
When she receives only long silence in return, Francine removes her touch from him.  His hurt is palpable, but so is hers.  She cannot remain in her old haunts, knowing he is so near, knowing he is so dear.  She is resolved to move on , with her life, as well as with this conversation.  
  
"And what of your fortunes, Mr. Drake?"  
  
He sighs, his eyes darting to the table before them and the visored symbol of what he has become.  "I am adrift, a man of action, a man of structure, with too many idle hours on my hands."  
  
"Police work?'  
  
"It suits me no more."  He fingers up the crease in his uniform pants, giving a wry twist of his mouth.  "I am Her Majesty's humble customs guard now."  
  
Compassion laced with something more swells in Francine's breast, threatening to bring an unseemly moisture to her lashes.  How it breaks her to see him so -- lost, aimless, powerless, hopeless.  As always, her instinct is to nurture him, to see him happy.  But her hands are tied by the cordons of his marriage contact.   
  
After a few moments, Bennet recovers enough to chide himself.  "What  a poor host I am!"  he says with a crooked grin, sad as ever.  "Can I fetch you a cuppa?"  
  
"Do not trouble yourself," responds Francine, her social deference automatic.  
  
"No trouble at all.  I've upped my skills in the kitchen," he volunteers, half-proud, half-mocking.  At Francine's politely inquisitive look, he adds, "It's the bachelor's life again for me."  He pauses, before finishing with a gruff and almost bashful admission.  "The writ of divorce becomes law at month's end."  
  
It is well Francine has no china saucer in her lap; it would otherwise surely have landed on the carpet at his words.  Suddenly all she came here to do is turned on its head.  Two months ago when she left London, she had still been in a quandary about her relationship with the handsome police inspector.  The time apart had taught her something, had made her realize the feelings she was developing for Bennet Drake were complicated and compelling, and totally inappropriate.  He belonged to another.  And while she is of the strong mind that the estranged Mrs. Drake is undeserving of the title, she deems no future for herself with a man who pines for another, and no room for the pain of a friendship that will never be anything more.  She knows she can never have his whole heart, but neither will she settle for a lover forever looking backwards.  This visit was meant to be a farewell.  
  
Yet now he tells her he has closed that door, sundered that bond.  
  
"Miss Sewell?  Francine?"  Concerned, Bennet calls her from her stunned reverie.  "Have I said something amiss?"  
  
"Far from it," breathes Francine with a weak smile.  "I will take that tea after all."  The dictates of polite society would demand she express some measure of regret at his news, but she cannot bring herself to speak that lie.  She follows him with her eyes as he repairs to the kitchen.  
  
By the time he returns, Francine has composed herself and in fact has the inklings of an idea.  While Bennet pours, she leans back against the cushions, crossing her out-stretched ankles, at ease for the first time since her arrival.  She accepts the cup and saucer he offers, pursing her lips to cool the steaming beverage before taking a fortifying sip.  
  
"Tell me, Mr. Drake, are you happy with your present lot?"  
  
Bennet shrugs, passing her a plate of biscuits, secretly hoping they haven't gone stale.  "Happiness is fleeting," he mutters cynically.  "None of us deserve it."  
  
"You deserve it," Francine asserts matter-of-factly, taking a shortbread.  He remembers her telling him a version of this same notion the first time he laid eyes on her.  "I deserve it," she decrees with equal confidence, dipping her smallcake and taking a bite with eyebrow arched in his direction.  
  
"That is truth," Bennet agrees fervently to the latter, thinking how happy they both were during the weeks of his recuperation.  
  
Francine looks down, toying with her teacup, suddenly less sure of herself than she was a moment ago.  "Do you like to work with your hands?  Build things?" she clarifies quickly.   
  
Bemused, Bennet tilts his head back to stare at her.  "What, like houses and such?"  
  
Francine answers patiently, her wide eyes encouraging him to consider her words.  "Like cabinets, and hearths, and decks.  And yes, perhaps repair a wall or two."  
  
"I've been around it," Bennet allows.  "My father was a mason."  He wonders what she is on about.  
  
Sliding her china onto the table's edge, Francine fills her lungs, then turns to face him.  "Mr. Drake, the estate outside Cardigan needs repair.  My parents were aging and only used but a few rooms of the house..."  Her voice trails off ineffectually and she starts again, more strongly.  "I need a partner in this venture; I cannot do it alone.  Someone I can trust.  Someone who can keep up with the physical demands of maintaining such a property."  Her gaze falters momentarily.  "Someone to live on the premises and share the responsibility with me."  
  
"A hired man, you mean."  There is both weariness and distaste in his interjection.  
  
Francine shakes her head quickly, earnestly.  "No!  A partner!  A business partner," she stresses ever-so-slightly.  A beat goes by.  "Are you interested?"  It is a gamble she makes, a test she poses him.  If Bennet will follow her to the Welsh coast, he might be ready to truly turn the page on his past.  In any event, whatever happens or does not happen between the two of them, he will at least have a fighting chance to flourish  in fresh surroundings.   
  
Only his large hands keep Bennet's teacup from toppling.  The emotions of hope and hesitancy, gratitude and gladness swirl across his face.  Leave Whitechapel?  He'd done it once before when he went to war, only to find a savagery in himself he's been trying to escape ever since.   Leave Whitechapel?  He'd done it once again when he relocated to Manchester, only to have fate pull him back like a fly in a spider's web.  Leave Whitechapel.   To start anew, scrubbed by the salt air, washed by the sea, with his eyes on the endless horizon instead of the choking alleys of the East End, with his existence tied to the ebb and flow of the elements rather than the grinding rhythms of the city.   
  
Francine is looking at him uncertainly, expectantly.  
  
"Yes," breathes Bennet.  "Yes," he says a second time, with rising force.  He wishes nothing more in this moment than to take her hand between his, but he doesn't trust himself not to pull her into his arms.  Instead he says in wonder, "Once again you toss me a lifeline, Miss Sewell."  
  
"Yours is a life worth saving," she responds softly.  "This I have always known."  
  
Bennet is deaf to the faint echoes of another woman whose faith in him was his salvation, whose faithlessness was nearly his damnation.  He hears only the chance to tie his life to Francine's, sees only her blue-grey gaze shining back at him.  Ultimately, it is he who breaks the visual bond, setting aside his saucer with a hand rendered suddenly clumsy.  
  
"Well," murmurs Francine brusquely, to cover her own unsteadiness.  "There is much we must plan in the coming days.  How soon could you leave for the coast?" she asks forthrightly.  "I will be some weeks here."  
  
Bennet rolls his eyes around the room, trying on the mien of one who is leaving, already feeling detached.  "Not much in this place is mine."  His shoulders rise and fall without a care.  "Rent is paid through the end of the month."  
  
Francine smiles sympathetically.  She doesn't mean to rush him -- it is only her nature to order her affairs.  "I will wire my solicitor tomorrow, instructing him to give you full access to the estate funds."  
  
Bennet lofts an eyebrow, his next words offering her an exit from what seems to him a hasty decision.  
  
"'Tis a high degree of trust you place in me..."  
  
Francine's answer is intimate and unwavering.  "I would trust you with my life.....Bennet."  
  
"As you have revived mine.....Francine," he responds, his heart full.  The pair share a smile full of promise.  
  
 


	12. CHAPTER TWELVE

Piercing air and eardrums, the long blast from a steam whistle reverberates off the vast archway of glass and steel.  Powerful thrusts of rods and crankshaft drive the wheels forward the final few yards, while grey smoke from the towering stack above mixes with the damp foggy air that seeps through the terminal.  Brakes screeching a protest, the massive locomotive pulls into the Whitechapel terminus.  
  
Passengers disembark onto the already crowded platform -- men in bowlers and lightweight coats, women wearing their finest millinery for travel.  Some hurry to the row of hansoms parked on the frontage lane parallel to the tracks.  Others make their way back towards the baggage car to claim their belongings.  Most step over the reclining bum propped against the base of the tree-sized light pole; all ignore him.  Except for one man -- the one waiting patiently for the crush of arrivals to thin before securing his luggage aboard for departure.  
  
"Don't waste it on whiskey," warns Bennet primly, dropping a shilling into the inverted cap on the ground.  
  
The beggar raises rheumy eyes to his benefactor.  "Blessings, Guv'ner."  It takes him a moment to focus through his hunger and cold.  "Good trip to you and the missus."  He smiles at Francine, revealing teeth blackened by disease and decay.  
  
Bennet starts at the wayward assumption, but Francine does not seem to notice.  Eyes pinched in sympathy, she adds another coin to the man's meager collection.  Then, drawing Bennet by the sleeve, she pulls them out from under the cone of illumination cast by the giant sodium globe overhead.  Bennet tags along obediently, hoisting his familiar carpetbag and trundling a handcart with his travel trunk behind him.  Once they have regained as much privacy as possible in the sea of humanity, Francine turns teasing eyes to him.  
  
"This hour on the morrow may see you frolicking on the beach."  Though she hardly thinks him the frolicking sort, the vision of Bennet in a swimming costume is rather intriguing.  
  
"Don't own no bathing stripes," he mutters uncomfortably.  Then his face brightens.  "Why can a man never starve to death on the beach?"  He doesn't know many jokes, leastwise not ones he can tell a lady.  He is delighted to have this one to share.  
  
"Because of the sand-which-is there," he rushes the punchline, giving a broad wink.   
  
Disapproving heads swivel their way, when Francine explodes in an indecorous burst of laughter.  The incongruity of the sombre police inspector telling a joke is by far the most humorous thing in his words.  Bennet is inordinately pleased with himself at her reaction, and takes the time to nod genially at what he imagines are the jealous gentlemen around him.  
  
Francine, however, gives a cautionary wiggle of the eyebrows.  "You might want to take a picnic hamper," she jokes in return.  "More rocks than sand, I'm afraid."  
  
"Departing bags!" calls out the railway porter, catching their ear and their attention as he prowls the length of the train, pocketwatch in hand.  While Bennet conducts the business of tagging and stowing his steamer suitcase, Francine is struck by an abrupt thought, and pulls something from her clutch.  When Bennet returns to her side toting only his smaller case, the fact of his leaving and their imminent farewell weighs undeniable.  
  
"How long before you follow my trail?" he asks quietly, as time and the teeming crowd pass them by.  
  
Francine can hardly bear his gaze.  "The nursing staff is short-handed," she reveals with reluctance, inwardly cursing her sense of professional responsibility.  "I've agreed to stay on for a bit, until they find my replacement."  
  
Wincing impatiently, Bennet looks away, his aimless eyes finding unbidden the imposing clockface that inexorably ticks off the minutes to the time printed on his stub.    
  
"Here," murmurs Francine.  "I nearly forgot."  She presses something cold and metallic and circular into his empty palm.  "The keys.  To my home."  _To my heart.  To your future.  To so many things_ , she says silently.  Meanwhile, the rising chug from the freshly-stoked firebox thrums through the air.  
  
Nodding gravely, Bennet accepts what she offers, dropping his satchel to the ground and squatting to place the precious key ring inside.  
  
Suddenly, three warning whistletoots sound and the throng surges forward, jostling Bennet off balance as he rises to his feet.  His body tips closer to Francine's, and his hand goes out to steady himself on her shoulder as she wraps her forearm instinctively around his waist to steady them both.  Their vision locks, their breath falters, their hearts race.  Thus they stand, frozen on the brink of eternity, until the spell is broken.  
  
"All aboard!" the porter bellows through cupped hands.  Like a row of dominoes waiting to be tipped, all the passenger car doors stand open.  The attendant walks down the row, closing them with a bang one-by-one, as travelers disappear inside.   
  
Stepping apart awkwardly, Bennet and Francine avoid each other's eyes, as the whistle shrills its second and final summons.  Francine looks up then, with a gentle smile.  
  
"Safe travels, partner," she whispers, using the pause that follows to commit every detail of his face to memory.    
  
"Perhaps we should shake hands over our new partnership," Bennet ventures softly and somewhat disingenuously, longing for one more touch of her skin.  Without a word, Francine raises her wrist.  
  
In solemn ritual, they seal their pact with a warm handclasp, fingers lingering much longer than necessary.  And in that moment, Bennet Drake of Whitechapel becomes Bennet Drake of Wales -- a man reborn.  
  
  


********************

 

"Wonder what's keeping her?"

Drake rocks back in the broad-armed seaside chair, nursing a sherry and watching the afternoon tide tease the shoreline.  His companion licks a large paw, seemingly disinterested.

"Not even so much as a telegram," Bennet grumbles.  " ' Am well.  Arriving next week' ," he parrots an imaginary message over the Marconi.  "Or a letter -- that would be better," he decides.  Pretending to read his long-fingered palm as though it were a fold of perfumed vellum, he parodies, "Dearest Bennet, how I miss you!  I am counting the days until I can join you.  Mark them seven at the most.  Fondly, Frannie."

He sighs.  That second example is pure fantasy, but the first is a reasonable scenario.  Days have slipped into weeks, weeks into more than a month.  The people of the village have been unfailingly welcoming to the quiet transplant in their midst.  Bennet has all manner of helpful advice and offers of assistance as he settles into his new lifestyle.  And he is in no danger of starving.  The local postmistress hopefully bakes him a shepherd's pie once a week, no doubt mistaking his eager interest in the daily mail deliveries for something other than what it is.  Down at the local pub, the lads have jollied him into a spot on the Wednesday Darts Team.  He is not lonely.  But he is alone.

Except for his casual feline friend.  "What am I to call you then?" he asks the big silver-grey tomcat who drifts in and out of his days like some sea-borne knot of wood.

As if on cue, the normally taciturn creature gives a lazy rumble ending in a surprise sneeze.  "Rawwrrph."

Bennet chuckles.  "Ralph it is."  He pulls a tin out of a pocket.  "Time for a snack, hey, Ralph?"  The pungent smell of smoked kippers fills the nostrils of both human and feline, as Bennet curls back the lid with the key. 

Ralph drapes his heavy body over the chair arm, reaching greedily for his favorite food.  Like an indulgent father, Bennet tosses him the first small fish, using his fingers.  He has a laugh at himself -- sipping sherry like a swell but eating kippers without a fork.  A far cry from the rigid manners of city existence.  Society's mores seem to rest more lightly here, have less sway.  Defiance can walk hand-in-hand with decorum, so long as a man is honest and works hard.  Or a woman.

"What do you suppose Frannie would think of us two old bachelors?"  He grins at the cat, attempting to scratch an ear but getting a warning swipe of a paw for his trouble.  "Grouchy old bachelors," Bennet amends with a snort, setting the almost empty tin square amongst the sand and pebbles for Ralph to finish.

Absently, Bennet licks the seafood brine and oil from his fingers, unconsciously cat-like in his cleansing ritual.  With furtive flicks of his pink sandpaper tongue, Ralph likewise freshens up after his meal.

"She'd likely be sitting out here with us, that's what," Bennet tells them both, answering his own question in the absence of any input from his audience of one.  Coming to know this community of unaffected, independent people has given him nuanced insight into the gentle nurse with the core of bedrock.  For this is the setting that shaped her nature -- her inner calm, her hopeful outlook in the face of all, her self-sufficient approach to life.

"Frannie was right -- this _is_ a magical place," Bennet murmurs, feeling a swell of thankfulness in his soul.  Already he can tell it working its magic on him.  Cast free from his moorings in London's East End to come to harbour in a secluded cove on the Welsh coast, he knows new life flowing through his veins.

Spellbound by the lapping waves and the crying gulls, Bennet closes his eyes.  Only one thing is lacking to make this moment perfect.

"Where is she?" he asks the sea and the sky, and all who can hear.

With a soft meow of solidarity, Ralph places a discreet and comforting paw on Bennet's knee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

Perching sphinx-like on the edge of the pond, Ralph watches with lazy interest, as the man pats another smooth stone into place.  He offers a  companionable commentary of meows and chirps, as his lionesque head swivels back and forth between the activities outside the pool and the lovely temptations beneath the water's surface.  He dangles a seemingly careless paw closer within striking distance, while his green eyes follow the ornamental fish installed this day in the back garden, surely for his benefit.  Ever so slowly, Ralph rises into a crouch to make his move.  
  
"You leave them be!" barks out Bennet, slapping the water with a garden trowel and sending a splash straight into the feline's face.  Ralph retreats with a hiss and a glare, turning his back haughtily to groom himself a few feet away.   
  
Bent on his knees in the fresh earth, Bennet reaches  another flat round of rock from the wheelbarrow and fills the spot vacated by Ralph, completing the final touches of his landscaping project.  Then he sits back on his heels and surveys his work.  
  
He can scarce recall the face of the old Legionnaire he encountered in the Cairo hookah palace, but he does remember the bloke's telling of the traditions grown up in his home country surrounding goldfish.  A first anniversary gift given in Mediterranean lands in centuries past, by husbands to their wives, as a harbinger of prosperity to come.  Though he and Francine are not married, and he hopes to celebrate a reunion rather than an anniversary, the symbolism still holds -- felicity for the future, a hope of good fortune.  
  
If the damned cat doesn't eat their fortune first.  
  
Ralph sidles back to Bennet's side, insults forgotten, purring as he deposits fur on the side of Drake's cotton trousers.  "Look, don't touch," Bennet commands suspiciously, and the cat plants his haunches in tail-twitching compliance.   
  
As if in a mutual trance, the two gaze into the cool clear water, albeit with very different mindsets.  Bennet finds a soothing peace in the undulating aquatic dance of the paired comets -- one variegated, the other a brilliant red-gold that reminds him of a certain lady's hair.  He watches as the graceful beauties wave their deeply forked tails, circling one another, much like he and Francine.  
  
So many times in the past weeks, he has wished he could have that moment on the platform back, wished he had taken her in his arms with passion instead of offering his hand like the empty soul she must think him.  His jaw tightens, as he resolves to remedy that mistake the first chance he gets.  And still, no word from her.  He sighs.  
  
"Females, hey, Ralph?" he invites the cat's commiseration.  "You must have your share."  The big tom rubs his jowls against Bennet's thigh, choosing to keep quiet about his conquests.   
  
"Pah!"  says Bennet in helpless vexation.  "Who can understand them?!"  It is the unanswerable riddle for the male of his species.  What was it he'd heard the American say once?  _Women: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em._ That brings a wry smile to Bennet's lips.    
  
Suddenly, like the new wind that brings the sailors home, a rising breeze strikes Bennet's face, cooling his perspiration and causing him to sweep the shoreline with his vision.  There is nothing out to sea except the siren song of the waves on the horizon, but from the corner of his eye he notices movement on land, still some distance away.  He follows the approach of a clapboard wagon as it rounds the bend from the direction of the village, transporting a man and a woman and their goods.  From the bright yellow paint job, he recognizes it as the same delivery service he hired last month to bring building supplies from Cardigan.  But he expects no deliveries today; likely it is headed to one of the other properties along the coast.  
  
Seeing the horse drawn conveyance reminds him of another of his daily chores.  Stone's Throw has its own buggy for short excursions, and a stodgy Shire Draft with the unfortunate moniker of Hector to pull it.  Acknowledging to himself that the animal probably needs tending, Bennet turns away from the view of the road to gather his tools.   
  
Halfway to the barn he halts, realizing with a frown...that wagon should be visible by now beyond the fence line, heading for its distant destination, but it is not.  Which can only mean one thing -- it must have stopped.  At the front gate.  Behind him.  
  
Whipping his head back over his shoulder, Bennet hesitates for a moment, testing the very air for the sensation of change.  Then he drops the handles of the wheelbarrow with a thunk, and runs in the direction of the house.   
  
  


**********************

 

"You need only take it as far as the foyer."

Flattening her hand against the top of her head to claim her wide-brimmed sun hat in the wind, Francine directs the delivery man from her spot where the footpath meets the veranda.  He grunts and grins, embracing the standing trunk and backing slowly up the steps.  The only real need for muscle is in getting the traveling wardrobe up the risers.  Once on level ground, it rolls easily enough on its caster feet.

While the strapping young fellow negotiates the doorway, Francine closes her eyes and opens her lungs to a deep breath of home.  The scent of delicate wildflowers bruised in the breeze mingles with the familiar smell of the old oaken planks at her feet. The virgin buds just opening on the shrubs give off a whiff of their own.  Her nostrils detect the evidence of warm tilled earth nearby.  And underlying it all, the mixture of salt and seaweed off the water. 

When another capricious gust tries to snatch her headwear, she unties the ribbon sash beneath her chin and tucks the straw and feather adornment under her arm, then smooths the front of her dress nervously. 

Gone is the sombre pallet of mourning, as well as the tightly pinned tresses of fashionable London.  Having grown tired of sporting a silhouette resembling that of a prime candidate for phrenology study, Francine has ceased wrapping her head in braids, and now wears a more relaxed coif.  Two tortoiseshell combs pull the sides of her hair away from her face -- the rest falls free behind her, at the mercy of the ocean air assault.  She pushes a stray strand from her eyes and mounts the stairs, briefly considering whether a shorter hairstyle might be more practical here.

 

*******************

  
  
After a hasty stop at the kitchen basin to wash hands and face, Bennet hurries through the hallways, pulse pounding.  The sound of low voices and the slam of the front door reaches his searching ears.  He emerges into the airy entryway in time to see Francine toss her hat onto the newel post at the foot of the staircase.  His footsteps falter, as does his tongue.  
  
"Frannie!" he blurts out inelegantly, taking in her welcome form with hungry eyes.  
  
Francine turns as if in slow motion, like a ballerina in a music box, a thousand emotions lurching across her face and through her heart.  
  
"Hello, Bennet...Ben," she says, her voice soft on the second rendering of his name.  Her feet take her a step closer, where the light is better, where her line of sight is better.  Where she can fill her vision with him.  
  
Likewise, Bennet cannot tear his gaze from her.  "Your hair," he notices after a moment's study, shyly nodding his approval.  
  
"You're...tan," returns Francine with a helpless grin, flippantly voicing her own first impression.  Long days spent under the pale spring sun have lightened his locks and browned his skin, while daily dips in the Irish Sea have left him strong and straight-backed.  And unbearably handsome.  
  
Propping one hand on his hip, Bennet juts out his jaw and tilts his head, unable to resist chiding her just a bit.  "What, no telegram?  No letter?"  
  
Wincing, Francine looks away, properly chagrined.  "That was thoughtless.  I am truly sorry."  In truth, she'd tried a dozen times to pen a message, only to lose herself in her sentiments every time.  "Alas, I am a poor correspondent."   
  
"Yes you are."  Bennet rolls his tongue against the inside of his cheek to keep from breaking into an indulgent grin, but his efforts fail.  Francine smiles back at him.  
  
"Dear Ben," she begins playfully, snaking one arm around the balustrade and leaning casually against it.  "My obligations at the university are concluded.  I have booked rail passage for the twentieth.  I look forward to seeing...Stone's Throw...again."  
  
Though innuendo and allusion are not his regular verbal fare, Bennet is fairly certain her pause is not evidence of a failing memory regarding the name of the Sewell family estate.  His response comes readily, aided by much recent practice at composing imaginary postal missives.   
  
"Dear Frannie.  The renovations are coming along smartly.  You may not recognize the place.  I think you will be well pleased."  
  
A long moment of wordless communication passes between them, before Francine meters out huskily, "I am well pleased indeed.  Everything looks remarkable."  Yet her eyes are not on the freshly painted walls nor the newly varnished woodwork.  
  
Bennet feels his heart leap in his chest, even as he looks down self-consciously at his dirt stained knees.  When he raises his eyes, he is alarmed to see Francine moving to grab the leather handle of a wardrobe nearly as tall as she is, as though to bring it along the hallway.  
  
"Don't be daft, woman!"  He rushes forward, reaching around her to prevent the heavy piece from toppling on them both.  Francine turns slowly in his arms, and he is acutely aware of their bodies pressed together.  
  
"It has wheels, Ben," she whispers, inches from his lips.  
  
And suddenly the world itself has wheels, spinning round them as the embers of their suppressed passion roar to life.  Teasing, tasting, torrid, tender --  the minutes pass blissfully.  They rock back and forth, dipping and swaying, drinking each other in like drought victims in a life-saving cloudburst.  Eventually, when kisses are not enough and clothing becomes too much, Francine pulls apart, breathless.  
  
"We should move this to the bedchamber."  
  
Half drunk with desire, Bennet pauses in dimly realized disarray.  "You mean the wardrobe?" he mumbles against her soft neck, not really paying attention.  
  
"Don't be a damnfool," Francine giggles softly.  "I mean ourselves."  
  
And so, some hours later, Francine's luggage still stands forlornly in the foyer, utterly forgotten and unneeded in the moment.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The differences could not be more stark.  
  
As the late afternoon shadows creep in to claim the corners of the room, Francine's mind drifts down a path of comparison.  The broken man put into her care those months ago, injured to the point of expiry, sedated and barely breathing under her caring hands; contrasted with the virile, considerate lover, warm and willing under her caresses, who embraces her today.  A transformation surpassing anything either of them could have foreseen or imagined.  
  
With her temple pillowed on Bennet's bicep, Francine reaches across to trace a lazy forefinger around one masculine nipple.  
  
"In my professional opinion, I pronounce the patient fully recovered."  
  
Bennet's smooth chest rises and falls in silent mirth.  " 'Twas a thorough examination you gave me," he grunts happily, looking down at her rumpled head.  "If a trifle unorthodox," he adds, delighting in the way she cocks a coy eyebrow at him in response.  
  
Francine switches sides with her circular trailings, giving equal attention to the physique that has fascinated her since the days of sponge baths and bandages.  
  
"I recommend regular follow-up examinations," she says in a clipped clinician's voice, stifling her grin.  
  
"Yes, Nurse."  Bennet covers her hand with his, to still its idle and distracting play across his pecs.  He is beyond joyful in the knowledge that she does not view what happened between them as a mistake, something never to be repeated.  Pulling her fingers to his lips for a courtly yet intimate brush of warmth, he suggests, "Ongoing physiotherapy?"  He too can barely recognize the man he has become, his long-lost mischievous side finally freed to be this playful.  
  
"Oh, indeed," agrees Francine in rich and faintly ribald tones.  Entwining her long limbs with his, she snuggles closer, planting a soft kiss on the scarred site of the injury that brought them together.  Bennet may think it an ugly reminder of dark days, but to her it is the most beautiful place on his body.  
  
Wrapped in each other's arms, they lie in sated silence for some time, listening to the opening crescendo of a rainstorm outside.  But eventually, Bennet shifts onto his side to face her, his blue eyes pinched in seriousness.  
  
"Oh, Frannie...what do we do now?"  Some part of him is afraid -- he is not one to bed a woman with no thought to the future, no clear idea of the role he is to play.  His hushed voice is helpless with uncertainty, as he repeats, "What do we do now?"  
  
Francine extends her palm to cup his jawline, burying her knuckles in the wispy curls at the base of his skull.  
  
"Nothing.  Everything," she whispers, caressing him with her eyes.  "Whatever we want to."  
  
He swallows, trying to find words for his fears.  "I don't know --"  
  
She lays a finger across his lips.  "Shhhh," she quiets him.  "Neither do I."  She watches his lined face ease, feels his strong body relax.  
  
"One day at a time, Ben," Francine promises with soft sincerity, making no demands.  "We will take our happiness where we may.  That is all we need ask of one another."  _For now.  Forever._  
  
His lips cover hers then, stealing her breath, sharing her hope, sealing their joy.

 

 

 

********************

 

 

 

On the first day of June, under an azure sky kissed with puffs of cloud, a couple walks arm in arm up the gravel path to the head of the property known as Stone's Throw.  In his free hand, the man carries a length of wood.  In hers, the woman clutches a small tray of tools.

At the entrance post that faces the road they stop, trading their burdens.  While the lady steadies the short plank cross-ways against the upright, the gentleman applies hammer and nail to affix it.  They both step back to survey the angle several times, making minute adjustments, until their sense of level is satisfied and the wooden placard hangs true, showing its face to the world.  In letters carved by a brawler's rough hand and painted by one gentle and graceful, the sign proclaims an invitation to all who pass:  HOLIDAY ROOMS TO LET

With an element of finality, the couple gaze long at their handiwork.  Then, with an air of beginning, they embrace, sharing a lingering kiss, before locking hips and shoulders and turning for home.

 

 

 


	15. EPILOGUE: THE WAGER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the original short story than spawned this work. Included here as it falls in chronological order. Many, many thanks to those who suggested I expand this fully, and those who have encouraged and embraced this tale and its author along the way.

"Many thanks to you fine gentlemen."  With a wink and a final swallow of whiskey, Homer tucks the tidy stack of bills into his waistcoat pocket and rises from the poker table.  The other players shift in their seats, disgruntled, but the rakish doctor pays them no mind.  Donning his hat, he leaves the cigar-smoke filled dining car behind.   
  
On his way back to his compartment, he ducks his head to peer out the window, as the the train passes through another station:  CRYMMYCH  
  
"Goddammit!"  Jackson mutters to himself.  "What kind of language has no vowels?"   
  
He shakes his head impatiently.  The good news is, he is enroute to a holiday on the Welsh coastline.  The bad news is, his traveling companion is a bowler-hatted bookworm, instead of his lovely wife.  
  
Four months have passed since the events that changed all their lives -- six months that have seen the manhunt for the Dove brothers come to fruition.  In the aftermath, some inconvenient truths have been pardoned, allowing himself and Inspector Reid to continue at Leman Street; others are still raising difficult questions.  That steamer to Hong Kong may yet become an option.  He tries to imagine Caitlyn in geisha garb, not at all an unpleasant thought.  Though his sharp-tongued, sharp-witted wife would surely have his Yankee balls in a vise before assuming such a subservient role.   
  
Bracing himself against the rollicking of the rails, Jackson throws open the the door to the traveling compartment, causing the big man in the small hat to glance up from his tome.  The reader closes his book and pockets his spectacles, as Jackson flops down on the settee opposite.   
  
"Did Lady Luck smile upon you?"  Reid asks politely, giving a disapproving glance to the American's boots propped on the seat beside him.   
  
"Always," retorts Jackson, quirking his lips and patting the wad over his left breast.  "Speaking of wagers....." he continues, "...to reiterate our arrangements...."  
  
Reid spears him with a weary look.  
  
"If I'm right, you agree...."  Jackson prompts patiently.  
  
"To purchase the newest Zeiss from Jena for the dead room," Reid finishes with a dismissive hand wave.  A thing he wouldn't mind seeing in any case -- no one can surpass the Germans in the manufacture of microscopes.  "And if I am right, you agree..."  
  
Jackson smiles like an indulgent uncle.  "To mentor Miss Mathilda in her new-found fascination with forensics."  Which he would have done regardless, but isn't about to tell Reid so.  
  
The inspector considers his companion for a moment.  "Since when are you a romantic?"  
  
The American raises his voice expansively.  "It's not romance, Reid!  It's science!'  Then he tips his hat over his face and feigns sleep for the rest of the journey.  
  
Three shrill blasts on the steam whistle and the clanging of bells signal the train's arrival to the townspeople of Cardigan.  Toting their overnight valises, the Leman Street men push their way through the crowded platform to the street, in search of a hansom for hire.  They find one manned by a red-faced bloke whose once beefy core is now giving way to flab.  
  
"The Stone's Throw, please," Reid instructs the driver, while tossing his bag on the floorboards.  
  
The man's face lights up with interest.  "That place on the coast road, wot's been inherited by the daughter?"  
  
"The same," confirms Jackson, depositing his leather satchel and trying to wedge his lanky frame into the spare confines of the cabriolet.   
  
Their guide nods enthusiastically.  "Right good job they've done of sprucing it up.  Say, I heard the lady was a nurse back in London?"  
  
Ducking his head to take his own seat, Reid answers curtly, waving the man towards the pilot's perch.  "Yes, Miss Sewell worked at the Medical University."  


 

 

****************

 

 

 

Ten minutes on the pocketwatch finds them deposited in the bright sunshine and brisk sea breeze outside the gate of the ivy-covered house known as the Stone's Throw.  Whether is was the home's proximity to the shore or its slate stone walls that gave it its name, could be debated;  what could not be assailed was the charm of a seventy-five year old dwelling settled in to its place in the world.  The fence needs painting, a chunk is missing on a second story corner, but a freshly carved sign proclaims:  HOLIDAY ROOMS TO LET

Reid and Jackson mount the veranda and ring the bell, all the while gazing around them in keen interest.  The door is opened by a tall woman, fair of face, with red-blonde hair more straw than berry.  She smiles warmly. 

"Mr. Reid.  Captain Jackson."

The gentlemen tip their hats and murmur nearly in unison.  "Miss Sewell."

"Please," she laughs, ushering them in.  "I prefer Francine."

"Francine," parrots Jackson, casting his eyes around the tidy foyer as they enter.  The furnishings are simple -- cosy with a touch of rustic -- a far cry from the Victorian filigree of London.

Motioning upwards, Francine supplies, "The two rooms at the top of the stairs are yours."  The men nod, but make no move to ascend the staircase; there are more pressing matters.  With a tip of the chin, their host acknowledges their reason for coming.

"He's all the way back, on the deck."

"Does he know we were coming?" queries Reid.

"I told him this morning."

"How is he?" wonders the doctor.

"See for yourself."

 

 

 

************************

 

 

 

Large square hands grip the planer, sliding it along the railing, sending a long curl of wood to join the others on the deckplanks.  Brushing his bicep against the perspiration on his forehead, the man pauses at the sound of their arrival.  Self-consciously, he adjusts the scarf that encircles his neck.  The indigo cloth only partially conceals the ugly pink pucker of horrific half-healed wounds that mar his tan skin.  Forearms bared in the cotton henley he wears reveal the much gentler scars of the frantically performed transfusion that saved his life.  As footsteps approach, he composes his face and his thoughts.  The door opens. 

"Bennet."

"Drake."

A hard swallow.  "Well, if it ain't Whitechapel's finest."  An undercurrent of emotions cloaks the moment in the turbulent silence of words unspoken, until Jackson steps forward.

"Dammit, Drake!  You look good!"  He clasps his former colleague's arm heartily, as does Reid, breaking the tension into happy smiles.

Pulling together a quartet of wrought iron chairs around a matching table, Drake assures them brusquely, "You've come a long way to check my pulse.  As you can see, I prosper."

"It is a beautiful place," agrees Reid, settling into a spot and removing his bowler.  "And you've been busy, I hear."

Glancing down, Bennet flexes his fingers in unconscious response.   "It has been a healing, to work with my hands."

The inspector nods.  "And well I know, the curative powers of a life by the ocean."

Jackson has been watching their friend carefully, noting the colour in his complexion, the strength in his voice, the muscles in his torso.  The physical comeback seems complete.

"Miss Susan sends her regards.  And Connor," he adds cautiously.  He can't very well neglect to pass along the boy's greetings, yet this will surely pick at a wound of another sort.

Yet Drake seems to be at peace.  "You should bring them when next you come this way," he says quietly, then turns to Reid.  "How fares Mathilda?  And the boys of Leman Street?"

Jackson looks up from rolling a cigarette to snicker none too softly.  "One in particular fares better than average, thanks to Miss Reid."

Drake looks from one to the other in interest, ready to switch to alarm if necessary.  "What's the meaning of this then?"

Reid rolls his shoulders, declaring somewhat stiffly, "Mathilda and Sgt. Drummond have become good friends.  A ring would not surprise me."  Bennet looks taken aback, no doubt still thinking of Reid's daughter as the fragile young girl returned from a nightmare three years previously.  "She sends her love to her Uncle Ben."

"One wonders what she sends to Drumm," muses Jackson wickedly, never missing a chance to torment the protective father.  Reid glares darkly at him.

"All right then," Drake changes the subject after an overlong pause.  "I should see what Frannie has to offer for refreshments."  He makes to get up, but Reid motions him back down.

"Stay," he urges.  "I will go.  I have accounts to settle with the lady of the house in any case."

 

 

 

*****************************

 

 

 

"I cannot take any more of your money."  Francine shakes her head while stirring a pitcher of mint-and-cucumber laced ice water. 

"But madam," Reid protests.  The lady gives him a pointed look.  "Francine," he amends.  "We hired you as a private nurse for his grievous wounds.  It was our great good fortune, and Bennet's, that you had the wisdom to heal his spirit as well."

Her face crumples around the corners with empathy.  "When he first awoke, he told me we should have let him die.  Did you know that?"

"I suspected as much," the inspector replies somberly.  "I do not think he still feels that way."

"No," Francine agrees, arranging four tumblers on the tray with the flagon.

"It was genius to get him out of Whitechapel."

Something gentle crosses Francine's features.  "Bennet is  a good man who deserves more than pain and sorrow and evil in his life."

"And you have brought him here and given him that.  For this we would pay you," Reid insists mildly.  "For a job well done."

Again Francine shakes her head in refusal.  "After my parents' death, I needed someone to do the hard labour here.  He does me a service."  Reid raises an eyebrow and the lady confirms it.  "The thing is beyond a business arrangement now."

Putting his wallet back in his vest, Reid declares warmly, "Then we have much to celebrate."

"That we do."  Francine returns his smile, adding a decanter of amber liquid to the tray.

 

 

 

**********************

 

 

 

Jackson notes the use of the familiar nickname, more certain than ever that he will soon have new optical equipment for his work.  It only stands to reason:  you don't put two healthy adults of the opposite gender under one roof for very long without nature taking its course.  Yet he wonders -- one thread twines deep in this man's life.

After a companionable pause, the American throws out with seeming casualness, "In case your mind inquires, the songbird has flown to the Continent."  He glances up from contemplating the tip of his tobacco.  "In the company of a new birdkeeper."

This elicits a wince from Drake, but no more.  "That was another lifetime, another man," he says, as though marveling at his own transformation.  "I am made anew here.  I did not think it possible."

Jackson stubs out his cigarette on the heel of his boot and flicks the remnant expertly over the deck rail.  "You seem near whole in body and mind," he pronounces his diagnosis.  "But there's one question I have."

Drake waits, not sure what is coming, not sure he will answer.

" _Frannie_ is a comely woman," observes the doctor shrewdly.  "Does she heal your heart as well?"

Bennet is accustomed to Jackson's prurient view of the world, yet chooses to treat the query as something stemming from friendship.  An enigmatic grin stretches across his cheeks.

"Frannie's had no easy time in life, either.  Let us say rather that we heal each other."

At that moment, the others return, Francine bearing refreshments to the table.  Before she straightens her back, Bennet places an easy hand around her waist.  The two share a tender glance and a brief touch of the lips, dispelling all doubt.  

As he decants the brandy, Jackson catches Reid's eye.  "Make sure it has the latest Koehler illumination system."

"Yes, yes," mutters Reid under his breath, as they all raise a glass and look to Drake.

Bennet takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with the fresh salty air, filling his vision with these three faces grown so dear.

"To old friends," he says simply.  "And new beginnings."

 

THE END

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  


 


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